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@fallenlondonficswap @alexis-royce I had a lot of fun writing up this fic for your secret swap!! I also had to trim it for the word limit
Mr Pages takes the Ex-Disgraced Academic out for a night at the theatre. Something is being planned.
Rating: Teen
No Warnings
Word count: 2,016(fic) + 398(oc credits) AO3 Link
It was later than typical when the letter arrived at the door. Mr. Cards had just changed out of its robe, and back into the Ex-Disgraced Academic. They were preparing to work on their Correspondence when it had slid through their mail slot. 
If neither the distinctive seal, nor name, had not indicated the sender, the address would. It was sent from the tower apartments directly above their own. Those which belonged to Mr Pages, Cards' greatest rival. The Academic broke the seal on the overstuffed envelope eagerly. Their good eye flew over the dense verbage contained therein. It posed no challenge to them, and they quickly deciphered the meaning of the letter. It was an invitation to a play. And yet, did the Academic not recall Mahogany Hall being closed that evening? Oh, something clicked. Rumors had been circulating in Bohemian circles for many years about a forbidden play, performed only with explicit permission from Mr. Wines, against direct order from the Ministry of Public Decency. So why would the Master of censorship, the very one who, if rumors were to be believed, tried to stamp this play out at every possibility, decide to take them along?
The best way to find out was to go. They would send confirmation in the morning, but through the night they would prepare for any likely schemes.
~
They agreed to arrive seperatly to avoid being seen together in public. A theatre box far above most was... still public, yes, but easier to mistake features in, or to not notice at all. So when the Academic arrived at their reserved box, Pages was already waiting. At least, they recognized it as Pages as soon as it opened its mouth to wish them an "Enjoyluminating" evening. The loquacious master was not wearing its usual ink-stained robes. It seemed to have even ditched its bandolier of pens and inks. Or, judging on the suspicious way the oversized robe fell, perhaps it was simple under the cloak. The cloak which, based on style and size alone, clearly did not belong to it. In fact, it looked as though it had stolen a spare robe from Mr Apples. It was ill-fitting on the current Master. Pages looked about to burst when the Academic did not immediately ask why it had shunned its typical robe. They took a seat to one side, and then took the bait.
"So, my eloquent acommpanyment, why the change in attire?"
Pages arranged its own chair. "You are possilikely aware of my disgustred for this... play. Thus, you are also aware of my multinumerous attemps to blot it from the history books. As such, the only actors that would perform in it at those with ireverice towards me."
"Ah, so if it were known that is was you... you would be rather unpopular for the night.
"Precisorrectly."
The red curtains raised up, and the audience turned their attentions towards the stage. 
An actor strutted onto the stage. Their costume was composed of deep blue and black feathers, contrasting nicely with hair the color of dark cinnamon. Flickering candles lit the stage. The light danced along the costume's wings to bring the iridescence to life. This was the role of the Raven.
Pages leaned over to whisper to its companion. "Jamie Awnings, a Poet-Laureate who writes the most horrendful poetry. How they were chosen I do not know, but I have had to step in many times to keep their work from the public."
The academic raised an eyebrow. One did not typically become Poet-Laureate while being horredful at the art. 
The actor's talent with words and meter became evident quickly however. The round Raven began to sing an aria, but the words had not matched entirely with the Academic's research. If it weren't for the research, they wouldn't know that any of the words had been changed. They had, however, but it was well keeping with the original intent, and far better suited to the rhythm and rhyme of the piece. 
Pages' attention was rapt and fixated. Pages was also clearly becoming inebriated by the music. Even the Academic was being affected. Still, now was the perfect opportunity to enact their plan. From a hidden pocket of a sleeve, they carefully slipped out a notepad, and a fountain pen preloaded with violant ink. The Academic has chosen their seat strategically, putting their writing side as far from Pages as they could, to hide their work. It was known for forbidding this play, and it was likely to try something tonight. Naturally, they could not be blamed for taking a transcript in shorthand.
The Raven continued their aria, setting the scene to fill in the minimal scenery. Something, however, caught the Academic's notice. Their box provided a good view of the stage, and importantly, the lightest of views into the wings to the side of the stage. The absence of visible stage crew told the steward that there was either a stage crew composed of only the actors, or that what crew there was knew well enough where to avoid walking to be seen. Perhaps both. So when someone in the Ministry uniform nearly stumbled onto stage partway through the song, it was an immediate tip off. Something was indeed going on behind scenes, something Pages had been planning. The rest of the song was performed without a hitch however. In fact, the Official seemed to be avoiding messing anything up as much as possible. Shouldn't he be trying to stop things? Still, perhaps the Academic's plans were compatible with Pages'. The music was working in their favor. It would addle the Curator's thinking, making it less likely to notice the gentle, soft scratching of pen on paper. They were a minute or so behind, but the Raven's personality had imprinted the details onto their mind quite nicely. It would make reconstruction easier later. A new character enters, their costume black and ragged. Tattered strips of cloth are woven into the spokes of their chair, and a shredded train follows behind them. Their stubble and bun were both intentionally left messy and unkempt. The overall effect was reminiscent of a wedding dress that has been dashed upon the zhoreline. A sense of love-sick duty weighed them down. The Messenger's sadness laid like Lacre on the stage. The Raven had been bragging about their singing not a moment ago, but as the raggedy Messenger approached, Raven deferred to the song of the Messenger. Pages scoffed. "That one has never been fond of me, always mooning for another. They have... circumvented my plans on multiple occasions." ~ The scene changed, with no sign of interference. ~ The play progressed, with no one noticing what had transpired, save one. Pages continued to interject comments at odd moments. The Academic continued to respond as well as they could while paying attention to the play and writing it all down. Suffice to say that it was rather difficult, and there were many unfortunate moments lost to Pages’ chattering. They wondered if it was deliberate, but that would require it to know what the Academic was hiding.
The Messenger, now played by a tall actress with manicured facial hair and a tattered groom’s suit, was holding council with the Owls. The Principal Owl had pale, tawny feathers that stood out from his dark brown skin. His head covering had baubles and trinkets that made a light sound as he trembled with fear.
Pages seemed particularly incensed by this scene.
“What do you do among my spires?” questioned the Messenger.
“Why, great master, we watch, we wait, we consume” he responded. “You watch, and wait, and consume, you say. And yet, is there not one who will consume you as prey?” On cue, another Owl stalks out from the shadows.Their hair is stark as fresh blood, the beak of the mask sharp. Their cane makes little noise as it lurks around the others. Their large feather tufts reveal their true nature. They are a Great Horned Owl Hunter. “Great Master, protect us so we will be free from their shrieks always, and we will serve you loyally the rest of our days!” She adjusts uncomfortably. There are many beats of conflicted silence, until she speaks again with a sigh “oh, were it only my unfettered choice. But alas, I owe them their hunts and the joys of their voice.” She left, and the Owls were left alone with the Hunter, who grinned behind their mask. Most of the actors were on stage at this point, distracted by the hunt. Another enforcer! Behind the curtains, nearly tripping on something, and carrying a large stack of papers. The Academic could not get a closer look however, for when they tried to shift closer, an ink-stained talon came to rest on their thigh. The intermission began, the curtain smothering any other chance. With its other hand, the Master made a sweeping gesture to the stage. Ice blue eyes turned towards their box from across the auditorium. Wines, who had bribed the Ministry to allow the play for the night. Their attention snapped back to Pages. “-these actors perform this play as an act of rebellion against me. They revel in this illegalbidden display. It is done to spite me, and undermine my authority”. It spat the sentence with less-than-figurative venom. “I will ensure they acknowledge my position as Paramost Poet and Auteur. And you” it turned towards them with luminescent eyes. They slid their writing out of sight. “You shall bow as well, Mr. Cards”. Was the blood rising to their face from anger? Or from the darker, more intense emotions that often defined the two of them. Those emotions had become so entangled of late. The Academic had been thinking of a clever retort when the brief intermission ended. With a personality that filled the stage and beyond, the Phoenix would not permit distraction from their soliloquy. The reflection of candle flames danced across their round lenses. Instead of the Phoenix's typical dress, this one opted for a tuxedo with the train of a peacock and the color of their fiery hair. “I am so very tired of flames, I will drown myself in snow and emerge in perfect serenity. Or not at all”. “What’s that? You have no more use for flame?” the Messenger reappeared and rolled towards the Phoenix. The scene went without hindrance. Even the final ‘immolation’ of the Phoenix in ice went as planned. It aroused the Academic’s suspicions. ~ When his cane made contact with the stage, it cracked like thunder, and reverberated against the proscenium arch. The gray streaks of his bright hair conjured to mind the storm clouds of the surface. His expression held little pity for the Messenger. Though she was taller by far, her presence was miniscule next to the Dragon. “You again,” she whimpered. “Yes. I remain the servant of you Master, as must you. He awaits the delivery.” “Do not! I beg you, do not! He cannot hear the message yet, he cannot hear what i have to say!” her voice turned frantic, fervent. The Dragon’s voice had little care. “You have a little time yet. Should this place fall, two will remain”. The booming of his cane grew distant as he left. She fell to her knees with a wail. ~
The play ended as it always must, message undelivered, crimes judged, and with Time devoured. The curtain fell, and then rose again for the final applause. “So, why did you invite me to see this play? Should you not have stopped it?” Pages stood to loom over them. It swayed slightly. “Have I not already stopped it? It would be rather difficult to perform without a script!” “The cast could perform-” “Oh certainly! Alone in their cells of New Newgate!” With gritted teeth, the academic stormed off. ~ They found Mr. Wines, and with pulled string, favours, and promises, convinced it to stop the Neddy Men from making arrests. The scripts however, were still missing. ~ Weeks later, new scripts of the Seventh Letter entered circulation. Lines and music had to be reconstructed from memory and missing gaps, but it was rather accurate. Most importantly though, Mr. Pages had not managed a score over Mr. Cards. ~~~~ OC CREDITS.
CURTAIN RISES. The last to ENTER is the PRINCIPAL OWL, with the MINOR OWLS FLOCKING behind him. He has dark brown skin, and near-black hair. He is still wearing his head covering. He is short and slight. He is The Theological Caregiver, created by @moonstruck-stormy. He bows with pride, then MOVES STAGE RIGHT.
The HUNTER ENTERS next. A step forward, ready to extend and ki- a pause. They had forgotten to leave character. A shift, and it is once more Harper Faraday. Light-olive skinned, with spectacles, and hazelnut shell hair. Their cane is light and practical. They were created by @the-insouciant-scientist. They bow, sheepish, MOVE STAGE LEFT. The PRINCIPAL DRAGON ENTERS with the presence of a rumbling Storm. His cane clicks are distinct and pronounced. He hais fair skin, large round glasses, and hair like a cloud rimmed sunset. The PRINCIPAL DRAGON is played by Orsinio Elderwood. He was created by @house-of-mirrors. The MINOR DRAGONS EMERGE from the WINGS to FLANK him. They bow together, then MOVE STAGE RIGHT.
The PHOENIX ENTERS from the East. At first look, they are similar to Orsinio. They share glasses and skin tone and hair color. On second look, they are different. The Partial Performer is taller, and has no cane. They were created by @thedandy-detective. Their bow has been practiced, with calculated flair. They MOVE STAGE LEFT. ENTER the RAVEN. Tonight, he is a stocky actor with russet hair and many freckles. They are short and fair-skinned. This is Poet-Laureate Jamie Awnings, created by @thedeafprophet. He makes a grand, sweeping bow, and MOVES STAGE RIGHT. The two halves of the MESSENGER STEP and ROLL to CENTER STAGE. They clasp hands. The MASCULINE HALF is tall, thin, and pale, with a well maintained mustache and goatee. Her hair is dark and short, and she wears glasses. She is Irving Merritt, created by @the-insouciant-scientist. The FEMININE HALF uses an elegant wheelchair. They have long hair, dark but greying, in a bun. They have stubble, and small glasses. They have fair skin, and are plump. They are Elias Leroux, created by @the-dye-stained-socialite. They bow with much drama. The CAST MOVES towards CENTER STAGE and form a solid line. They JOIN HANDS where possible, and raise them together. They swing forward into a final bow, then slowly raise back up to applause. CURTAIN FALLS.
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lagingersnapz · 2 months ago
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Some Rain Must Fall - (Fallout Fic) Chapter 10: Ancient History
Chapter: 10/?
In the past, the tension between Lucy and the Ghoul comes to a head, or rather a finger, and a good ol' fashion honest exchange... of fingers.
In the present, Lucy and Cooper settle in for a night or two in Vault 4, and Lucy gets a chance to ask about why Cooper didn't want her to know who he was.
Characters: Lucy MacLean/Cooper Howard(The Ghoul), Dogmeat(CX-404), Original Characters
Word Count: 5245
Warnings: Violence, Swearing
Author's Note: Well, we made it to the final chapter that includes a scene from the show at the beginning. After this it'll just all be fanfiction stuff. Thank you again for everyone who has read my little story so far. Hopefully it continues to be a fun read. No end in sight yet, since I still have a lot to cover in my story. I would like to reiterate, though. this is a SLOW BURN. Really... really... agonizingly slow. Though I've read ones that took longer than I intend to take, so maybe it's not really that bad.
Previous Next
Ao3
~~~
The sounds of the Wasteland had faded away, replaced by the pounding of blood in Lucy’s ear. There was nowhere to go, but she was going to try anyway. Ahead of her was a car. There was no time to go around, she needed every second she could get out of this head start. Rather than running around it, she slid over the hood, almost catching herself on a piece of jagged metal.
Rounding a corner, Lucy ran a few more steps and then stumbled to a stop in shock at the sight in front of her. Their surroundings had been a fairly standard broken down city, but suddenly all of it gave way to a massive crater, the likes of which Lucy had never seen before. It could only have been from one thing: a bomb.
Before she could finish processing what she was seeing, let alone figure out a way to get around it, something wrapped around her torso. Lucy had just enough time to look down and see that it was a rope, a lasso, before it pulled taught and she was sent flying backwards, butt over tea kettle through the dirt, her neck bending painfully. Thrashing, she tried to gain some traction on the ground, but the lasso stayed tight, and she was being pulled back in the direction she had just come running from. It didn’t take much to realize the Ghoul must have caught up with her. Where the heck had he even been keeping enough rope to make a lasso with?!
“Where d���you think you’re goin’? The pulling stopped and he threw down the rope, moving to stand over her. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere.” The Ghoul reached down for her, one hand grabbing the lasso still wrapped around her chest, and the other reached for the front of her jumpsuit, trying to get a hold of it to stop her squirming. Lucy became more frantic, and the hand came up to her face. She felt fingers trying to grab her jaw, and knew he was probably trying to make her look at him so he could threaten her some more and tell her how futile her escape attempt had been.
As Lucy felt the fingers brush over her lips, an instinctual reaction took hold and she bit down, feeling something crunch between her teeth. She swung her head, ripping, and felt something come loose, and as blood dripped into her mouth and over her chin, realization of what she had just done set in. Lucy had just bitten off the Ghoul’s finger﹘it was still in her mouth﹘and the two of them locked eyes.
“There you are,” the Ghoul said, more calmly than she expected. “You little killer.”
Lucy turned her head, spitting the finger as far away as she could manage, hoping he would never find it again. It didn’t seem likely that medicine up on the surface would be able to reattach a finger, but in this case she was hoping to make sure of it.
Hands closed on the fabric of her jumpsuit and the Ghoul pushed himself to his feet again, hauling her up with him, bracing her legs against his to make sure she stayed upright. With one hand he held hers, pointer finger extended, and with the other he drew a knife. Lucy realized what was about to happen, shrieking as she tried to get away, but his grip was like steel and she was stuck fast. The knife slid in a circle around her finger, slicing cleanly, though not painlessly, and Lucy screamed again in shock before the finger finally fell away into the Ghoul’s hand.
Holding the finger up in front of her, he twisted it around a little, driving home what had just happened. She had taken his finger, and in return he had taken hers. Ma June’s voice echoed in her recent memory, commenting on how telling it was that Lucy still had all ten of her fingers. Well, that certainly wasn’t the case anymore.
“Now, that right there is the closest thing we’ve had to an honest exchange so far,” he said.
Lucy was shaking, breath trembling in shock as she looked between him and the finger he held in his hand. The smile she hated so much, his self-satisfied, smug smile, returned to his face and Lucy hated that he felt like he was coming out on top in this situation. Even worse, she hated that she felt he had as well. She was right back where she started, in his custody. The Ghoul shifted his grip and took the finger back out of her field of vision, grabbing the lasso wrapped around her and pulling her back in the direction of the puddle they had been drinking from. On the ground next to it was his saddlebags, which he must have left there when he came after her.
“Sit down, Vaultie,” he drawled when they got closer, and he pushed her down so she was sitting next to a rusted out car. Her mind was still reeling, and the stump of her finger burned and ached in equal measure. While she sat, he pulled the rope off of her, coiling it back up and stuffing it into one of the bags. Then he pulled out a roll of cloth, and unrolled it enough to store her finger in there before returning it to the bag.
“Now, I feel it’s only fair to warn you that if you try anythin’ like that again, I’ll be obliged to cut off more fingers.” The Ghoul spoke as he pulled his gloves back on over his hands, covering his freshly missing finger from sight. Lucy still felt his blood around her mouth, and tasted the tang of it on her tongue. Rather than answer, she glared at him. She wanted to spit some of his blood at him, but considering her state of dehydration she didn’t think she could even work up that amount of saliva.
“Come on, now. We’re almost there.” Reaching down, he pulled her back to her feet and pushed Lucy in front of him, and their march continued the same as it had been before, minus a finger or two.
The Ghoul had been telling the truth, and after only another hour or so of walking, he steered her in the direction of a massive building behind a half collapsed chain link fence. The pair stepped through a hole in the fence, and Lucy looked back at him with uncertainty, feeling her stomach start tossing with nerves again. A sign on the side of the building proclaimed it to be an old Super Duper Mart, though what purpose it served now she couldn’t have guessed, and that inability to guess was terrifying.
Every step seemed more difficult than the last, and Lucy could feel herself stumbling more often than stepping. The Ghoul grabbed her by the arm, tugging her along, half guiding and half keeping her upright. Finally the pair came to a stop in front of an intercom, and the Ghoul pressed a button, holding it down to speak.
“Transaction,” he said. Lucy felt the world tilt violently on its axis. A transaction? What kind of transaction?
A voice crackled at them from the speaker. “Yes?”
The Ghoul pressed the button again. “Two month supply of vials. Exchange one female. Mint condition.” He glanced over at her, his eyes landing on her maimed hand, which she had tucked against her chest. “Near mint condition,” he amended.
“Condition grading requires physical evaluation. Please send her in.” The voice on the intercom was startlingly cheerful, considering they were discussing trading her like livestock. A door nearby buzzed, and she heard the sound of a lock disengaging. The Ghoul heaved a sigh, running his tongue over his lower lip as he turned to face her. Lucy’s mind was slow from fatigue and a lack of water, but she still realized what was happening. The Ghoul drew a knife and stepped towards her, but Lucy was suddenly more afraid of what was in the building than she was of him.
“What’s in there?” she asked as he cut the ties on her wrists with the same blade he had used to cut her finger off.
“You’re ‘bout to find out.” His voice was flat as he looked at her, sheathing the knife, eyes squinting at her from under the brim of his hat.
“You’re selling me?” Lucy didn’t know why she was so surprised. Nothing he had done up until this point had indicated he was capable of kindness. If he was willing to eat another person, what was selling someone into slavery by comparison?
The Ghoul drew one of his guns, only half pointing it at her. “You got problems out here, too, Sweetheart. Best you try your luck behind that door.” He nodded his head in the direction of the opening. Lucy met his eyes again, searching for any sign of humanity. Any sign that he might change his mind. She found nothing, and shook her head at him, wondering why she continued to be surprised at how much cruelty he was capable of.
He indicated to the door with his head again. “Go on.” His voice sounded tired. When Lucy still didn’t move he reached out, grabbing her by the arm and half pushing and half shoving her towards the doorway. Lucy started to shuffle forward, head spinning. Stopping just outside the open door, she gave him a last glance over her shoulder. She watched the Ghoul gesture her forward with his gun, the threat lazy, like he knew she didn’t have enough left in her to fight him on it. Then, steeling herself, Lucy trudged forward into the waiting gloom while the door slid shut behind her.
The next time the door opened, Lucy was coming back out, though she didn’t feel quite like herself anymore. In her head she heard the words ‘My name is Martha.’ repeating over and over. In one hand she held a gun, and in the other a handful of little glass vials filled with amber liquid. On her way out of the store, after witnessing the carnage of the feral ghouls, Lucy had been debating which hand she was going to need if she found her Ghoul still waiting outside. Her new finger, helpfully attached by the Mr. Handy that had met her inside the store on arrival, tapped the side of the gun. It still felt a little numb, and she wasn’t used to it quite yet, but at least she had a finger again.
The sunlight outside was nearly blinding after the darkness of the store, but the ground under her newly boot clad feet felt more sturdy now. The Ghoul was still waiting outside, though in a vastly different state than she had last seen him in. Rather than standing, gun in hand, he was laying in the dirt, with a growing puddle of drool around his mouth. As Lucy approached, she saw his eyes flicker up to her, but he apparently lacked the strength for anything else, and continued to wheeze from where he was.
Lucy stood above him, feeling the weight of each item in her hands, still deciding which one she wanted to use. The events of the store were telling. She was smart enough to put two and two together. Roger, the ghoul they had met in the gutted clinic, had been in the process of going feral, and the Ghoul had put a stop to it when he killed him, saving him from losing his humanity slowly. The process could apparently be prevented by the little vials she now carried. The same ones that had been destroyed by the gulper when she had thrown his saddlebags into its mouth to save herself. The same ones the Ghoul had just tried to sell her for to save himself from the same fate.
It wasn’t clear to Lucy what stage of the process drooling in the dirt was, but it didn’t seem like a good sign. The Ghoul, who had been her tormentor, was reduced to this. He was pitiful. Pathetic. Weak. Lucy sighed.
“You don’t get these, you turn into one of those?” She gestured vaguely back at the store, knowing she didn’t have to elaborate on what ‘those’ were. He was clearly familiar with this place. He knew what it was they did here, and what was going to happen to her once she had gone inside. “That how it works?” It was obvious he wouldn’t be answering her, but Lucy didn’t need him to.
Crouching down, she looked at the gun in her hand again, making sure he could see her doing so. She had made up her mind on what she was going to do. She had thought she made it up the moment she saw him, but maybe she had already known from the start, because Lucy knew who she was, and she knew what was important to her. Still, she tapped her new, grey finger against the trigger guard.
“I may end up looking like you,” she said, making sure to look him in the eyes as she spoke, “but I’ll never be like you.” Reaching down, Lucy placed the vials right next to his gloved hand where it twitched in the dirt, before rising back to her feet, looking out over the Wasteland and back to him. “Golden Rule, motherfucker.” Then she turned her back on him and strode across the parking lot, away from him, and away from the Super Duper Mart.
***
Despite herself, Lucy felt her body relax a little moving through the halls of the Vault. Even when their group was herded into the quarantine rooms to wait for doctors to come and look over them. Cooper, on the other hand, looked like he was ready to jump out of his skin. His hand hovered over a weapon the entire time, gaining him wary looks from the Vault-dwellers, though none of them tried to disarm him. After Lucy’s last visit to this place, she couldn’t fault them. She and Max hadn’t set the best example.
Their wounds were treated, and a few were recommended IVs for dehydration, but overall their physical health could have been much worse. Their mental state, on the other hand, was abysmal. Although everyone felt a sense of relief at being inside the Vault and supposedly safe, nobody had had time to mourn and it was all starting to catch up to them.
Once they were all cleared by the doctors to be placed in housing units, the main group of survivors was placed in a large housing unit so they could be kept together. Lucy and Cooper, however, were placed in a separate unit close by, as they would not be staying long term. Kelly begged to be allowed to stay the night with them in their unit, and eventually Lucy relented.
The children had never experienced life in a Vault, and so much of it was like magic to them. Lucy showed them the bathtub and let them play in the warm water with soap and toys graciously provided by the Vault until they were all cleaned up, while Cooper sat stiff-backed in a chair against one of the metal walls of the living room, looking around like he saw ghosts wandering the halls and refused to let any of them sneak up on him.
Afterwards, the kids sat huddled in clean clothes on a couch, watching the Atomic King television and snacking and passing bits of food off to Dogmeat, who alternated between gobbling up every morsel and snuggling with a small stuffed bear she had managed to find, while Lucy put together something resembling a meal for them. It felt hauntingly domestic. None of them had had good sleep yet, and before the food was even finished the children had fallen asleep.
Lucy heaved a sigh and clicked off the stove top burner, leaving the pot of Blam-Co mac and cheese to cool before she could put it in a container for the refrigerator. “Cooper, can you help me?” Their unit had two bedrooms, and she gathered up Nate, leaving Kelly for Cooper to handle, bringing the little boy into the kids’ bedroom and tucking him into bed. Cooper was right behind her, and settled Kelly into the same bed as her brother. Dogmeat watched, teddy bear in her mouth, then jumped up in the bed with the kids, settling at the foot of the bed, putting the bear down between her front paws, nose turned towards the door like she would be keeping guard over them all night. Lucy brushed some hair out of Kelly’s face, tucked the blanket further around Nate, gave Dogmeat a thorough scratch on the ears and muzzle, then moved out of the room, clicking on a nightlight on her way out.
Back in the living room, Cooper looked around and shook his head, rubbing at his eyes. Lucy felt like her body was about to give out on her, and she debated whether she had the energy for a shower or not. Cooper’s hands clenched and unclenched until Lucy finally walked over to his side and stood, trying to think of what to say to him. There was so much that needed to be addressed. His name, for one thing, and his hatred towards the Vaults, but Lucy had no idea how to bring up any of them.
“I’m going to go shower,” she finally said. Cooper grunted in response, and went back to his chair by the wall. Water had never felt so good, and Lucy let herself stand in it for far longer than it took to get clean. It wasn’t until she started to sway on her feet and was afraid that she might actually fall asleep standing up that she made herself get out, dry off, and get dressed. She chose not to put on a vault-suit, instead putting on a pair of pajama pants and a tank top.
Cooper was right where she had left him in the living room, sitting in his chair, staring off into space. His hat rested on the table next to him, and the food remained untouched on the stove. Lucy ran her fingers through her uncombed hair, feeling them hit a snag as she chewed uncertainly at her lip. Eventually, she went and settled herself on the couch, facing Cooper where he sat in his chair.
“You’re Cooper Howard, right?”
***
Cooper almost laughed at the way Lucy ripped the band-aid off of the questions surrounding his name. It would have been funny if he wasn’t dreading it so much. The fact that she had figured out who he was shouldn’t have surprised him. He knew Lucy was smart, and maybe he hadn’t been as secretive about himself as he should have been. There was definitely a part of him that was happy she had figured it out. It felt good that there was someone who knew who he was again. But then he reminded himself that he wasn’t Cooper Howard anymore.
“Don’t call me that here,” he said, keeping his voice as even as he could manage. Lucy cocked her head to the side, her still damp hair falling over her shoulder.
“Why not?”
It was hard to say for sure why Cooper felt so on edge. Not that he had no reasons, but that he had far too many. The lack of sleep usually wouldn’t have been so difficult for him, but between the stress of getting the survivors here, the difficulties of losing people, and the discomfort of being inside a Vault, and not just any Vault, but one he had been in before, Cooper knew his nerves were completely shot.
“Because that’s not who I am anymore, so I don’t need anybody comin’ up to me asking questions about ancient history.”
Lucy continued to look at him with her big, hazel eyes, and Cooper squirmed a little in his chair until finally he couldn’t take being still any longer and rose to his feet to start pacing around the room.
“Why didn’t you just tell me that? Why didn’t you want me to know who you were?” Her voice was so soft and non-judgemental. Whether it was because she was truly not passing judgement on him, or because she was just too tired to be angry in that moment wasn’t totally clear, and Cooper realized he didn’t have a good answer for her, either. Why didn’t he want her to know who he was? His full identity of Cooper Howard wasn’t one he handed out often, but he had introduced himself as Cooper to people in the last 200 years.
“How many of my… How many Cooper Howard movies did you watch growing up?” he finally asked. He couldn’t bring himself to refer to them as his movies.
Lucy shrugged. “All of them, probably. My dad was a huge fan. Still is, I guess.”
Her answer stung a little bit. She knew what he had been before all of this. Before the ruined face and the harshness of the end of the world had changed him. Not just in a physical sense, but in every way. Cooper didn’t doubt that Henry would have talked about who Cooper had been if he was still enough of a fan to watch all of his movies with his kids. Had he told Lucy that Cooper was a good man? That he had been kind and generous and other bullshit from the time before?
“And how about you, Lucy MacLean? Were you a Cooper Howard fan?” In his life, Cooper had heard people say not to ask questions you didn’t really want the answer to, and as soon as this one left his mouth he knew he didn’t wanna hear what she was going to say to him. Rather than answer right away, Lucy continued to look at him with her searching eyes, taking in every detail of him as he stopped his pacing, waiting for her answer.
“Yeah, I was a fan,” she finally said, and the word ‘was’ was surprisingly painful.
Swallowing hard, Cooper pushed himself on. “And how about now? How do I compare to the man your daddy told you about growing up, huh? Am I everything you dreamed I’d be?” Cooper couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. He spread his arms wide so she could take in the full effect of him. Skin scarred, practically hairless, nose rotted away, and clothes tattered and filthy. Every cruel thing he had done to her and everyone else in the last 200 years passed through his mind. It wasn’t that all he had done was bad, but she hadn’t exactly seen him at his best since they met. He could almost taste the coppery tang of Roger’s blood on his tongue.
“You helped save these people,” Lucy said. Cooper fell back a step like she had struck him physically. Nothing she could have said would have startled him more.
“I ain’t done it outta the goodness o’ my heart, Sweetie.” Cooper’s voice was taking on the thicker drawl that he used when he wanted to get mean. The further he got from himself and the more he tried to be like one of the characters from his films, the thicker the accent. He wasn’t about to let Lucy see him as anything but what he was.
Lucy stood up and took a step closer to him. “Those kids,” she pointed off towards the bedroom they had laid Kelly and Nate down in, “are alive because of you.” Cooper opened his mouth to interrupt, but Lucy cut him off and continued, taking another step closer. “Whatever your reasons were, you stayed. Nobody tied you up or forced you. You made that choice yourself. If you hadn’t stayed with us, those Raiders might have killed all of us.”
She took another step. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that everything you did over the last couple hundred years was good or justified, because I’m sure not all of them were. I’ll bet there’s plenty of things you would take back if you could, and even more things you wouldn’t take back. But whatever has happened, it brought you here, and because you were here, these people are alive.”
Now she was toe to toe with him, and Cooper’s throat felt swollen and thick as he tried to think of what to say to her. Lucy didn’t give him the chance. “It’s not just about the bad you’ve done that makes you who you are. It’s about the good, too. I told you before I wasn’t familiar with your circumstances. That’s true. I don’t know what keeps you going through it all. But I know there has to be something, and I hope when you’re ready you’ll tell me.”
The two of them stood in silence, the only sound the background hum of the Vault, almost too quiet to hear. Lucy was seemingly unwilling to back down, and Cooper felt about two feet tall under the scrutiny of her gaze, even as he was looking down to meet her eyes. Her soft breath puffed over his face, and he smelled the mint of toothpaste. Her newest wound was visible on her chest above the neckline of the tank top from when the Raider had been trying to kill her, cleaned and with a butterfly stitch applied. When she had screamed out his name for help, he’d been terrified. When he found them he thought he’d been too late.
“You…” He started to speak and then didn’t know what he had been about to say. His eyes flickered down to her lips, which were set in a tantalizingly stubborn line. With a start, Cooper realized he was wondering if they were as soft as they looked, and if she would taste like toothpaste. So he said the first thing he could think of to make her take a step back before he did something they would both regret. “You’re a terrible judge of character. You don’t know me, Miss MacLean, so don’t pretend you do. I ain’t the men from my movies.”
Rather than be offended, a slight smile broke out over Lucy’s face and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe. Now go shower. You could use it. I already put some clean clothes in the bathroom.” She held up her hand to silence him when he started to protest. “It’s not a Vault suit, so don’t worry.”
Was he really about to let this young woman tell him what to do? Apparently so, because Cooper grunted at her, half in annoyance and half in amusement at her willingness to boss him around, then he turned and stalked off towards the bathroom.  He wasn’t sure what the name of this little battle they were fighting was, but mentally he knew this was another tally in Lucy’s favor.
Cooper’s clothes were practically a part of his skin by this point. They were the same clothes he had been wearing the day the world ended, other than the duster, and he hadn’t bothered with washing them often, if at all. The hot water of the shower felt like stepping back in time, and for a moment Cooper closed his eyes and imagined it rinsing away the scarring on his skin, returning him to the handsome Hollywood man he had been. If he still looked like that, would he have let himself kiss her?
Snapping himself out of his thoughts, Cooper turned the temperature of the water down and hurried to finish. When he stepped out of the shower, he found his clothes had vanished. How the hell had he not heard her sneak in to take them? Growling in the back of his throat, Cooper dressed in the clothes that Lucy had said she left for him and hated when he looked in the mirror. He looked fucking ridiculous. In fact he might just have to kill her over this. Clothes was not the right word for the shirt and pants he was wearing. These were god damn pajamas. And there were actual slippers left out as well. Hell would freeze over before he put on a pair of slippers. Cooper stalked past them and out of the bathroom barefoot.
“Where the hell are my clothes?” he demanded as soon as he saw Lucy. She was putting away the food that the kids had fallen asleep before they could eat.
“In the washer. Don’t worry. I set it to gentle. Otherwise they looked like they might disintegrate.” She wiped her hands on a towel hanging from the oven. “Hungry? Or ready for bed?”
Maybe he was in Hell. Cooper had actually died in the swamp, and every moment after was Hell. That was the only explanation for how he was standing in a Vault dressed like this. “I sure as shit ain’t hungry, Sweetheart,” he snapped.
Lucy shrugged off his comment. “Alright. Let’s go to bed then. I want you to sleep in the bed with me.”
Cooper just blinked at her for a second. “I ain’t sleeping in the same bed as you.”
Now she was rolling her eyes at him, and Cooper felt his jaw tense. “How is it any different from me sleeping next to you on the ground? Besides… I have a very practical reason for it.”
“And what would that be?”
Shuffling her feet, Lucy held his eyes, though he got the distinct feeling she wanted to look at the floor. “After everything that happened… I’m afraid I’ll have nightmares. I don’t want to be alone if I do.”
“And you think my presence is gonna help if you have a bad dream?”
Lucy nodded. “You make me feel safe, Cooper.”
That took the wind right out of his sails. Cooper wanted to argue that safe was the last thing he should make her feel, but the look on her face made him bite his tongue. Rolling words around in his mouth for a little bit, he let them out as a long, put-upon sigh. “Fine. But I better not end up with kids piled on top of me again.”
Neither of them said anything as Lucy led the way to the bedroom and crawled under the blankets. Cooper looked at it like another swamp monster was going to come bursting out from between the sheets, before resigning himself to another sleepless night. He’d felt more at ease in his coffin than he did between the covers of the soft queen sized bed. Rather than keeping her distance, as Cooper had assumed she would, Lucy immediately tucked herself up against his side again, and this time there was nowhere for him to rest his arm but around her.
“How the fuck did I end up here?” he whispered quietly to himself.
“Go to sleep, Cooper.” Lucy’s voice was soft, and he could tell she was already starting to drift off.
The silence lasted long enough that he thought she had fallen asleep, but then she started talking again. “Hey, remember how you said you didn’t want anyone asking you questions about ancient history?”
“Yep.”
“Know what I did for work in my Vault?”
“What?”
“I was a history teacher.”
“Well… shit.”
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dont-call-me-algernon · 1 year ago
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Ty so much @circeancity​ for the tag!! Five of my favorite fics I’ve written in no particular order, let’s go (under the cut because it got LONG)
1. Under False Pretenses
https://archiveofourown.org/works/29250057/chapters/71823882
Starting with an old-ish but gold. As far as I know, this was the first falsepretensesshipping fic ever posted to the Ao3 (that was tagged as such, at least) and, as silly as it sounds, I like to carry it like a fandom badge of honor of sorts. Not only am I very fond of the dynamic I’ve bult between Grimsley and Colress in this fic, but I’m also kind of proud of having been able to finish it at all, considering it’s a 30K multichapter fic. It might not seem that impressive to some but, seeing how I’m more used to writing 4-6K one shots, it definitely is for me.
2. All the Wrong Questions
https://archiveofourown.org/works/18758503/chapters/44499454
Since we’re on the topic of older works – this is my favorite wormfic I’ve written AND one of my favorite fics I’ve written in general. I still really like the way I managed to take advantage of the good old “5 times + 1” trope and of the fact I’m usually only able to write shorter one shots to showcase the progression of the characters’ relationship over time through brief but meaningful interactions. Add to that the fact that it focuses on another rare pair I’m very fond of despite not having written fic about in a while and yeah!
3. Last Stop, End of the Line
https://archiveofourown.org/works/46902853
Much more recent and not just a rare pair but also a rare fandom as well, with this one shot being it set in the Bullet Train the-book-not-the-movie universe. Funny thing is, I actually didn’t like the canon material that much on a first read because of skewed expectations (marketing promoting it as a straight-up thriller when it’s more of a dark comedy). But when I went back to it almost a year later knowing what to expect, I ended up enjoying the chapters dedicated to Lemon and Tangerine so much that I had to give them the fix-it everyone lives treatment™️. Putting it on this list because I’m especially happy with how the bits and pieces of dialogue turned out. Figuring out their voices was surprisingly difficult, but I like to think that I eventually succeeded in doing their interactions, always swaying between comically serious and borderline nonsensical even in life-or-death situations in the original novel, some justice.
4. Things You Cannot Choose
https://archiveofourown.org/works/22321633/chapters/53318095
I would actually give this spot to my whole Gotham Daemon AU collection but, if I had to pick a single fic, it would definitely be this one. I could not not include my favorite daemon AU I’ve written so far, since I seem to end up writing one for almost every new fandom I get invested in, these days. This fic was a bit experimental for me as well, since, while most of my works tend to be shipping-oriented, and even though there is some hinted-at history between Penguin and Riddler in this one, the focus here is more on the found family side of things and on how these kinds of relationships could work in a world where your soul walks (or flies, or slithers) alongside you in the form of a talking animal with its own thoughts and opinions and who, whether you like it or not, can and WILL show the rest of the world a part of you you may be trying to keep hidden.
5. Parallel Thinking
https://archiveofourown.org/works/42578607
Rounding up the list with another rare pair because that’s one of my trademarks as a fic writer, apparently. Compared to the other works I’ve mentioned so far, I don’t have a lot to say about this one. It’s not particularly experimental nor does it involve any specific gimmick or trope – in fact, it’s just two somewhat morally corrupt people talking, for the most part. Basically nothing happens, and yet when I think back to it, I find I still like the atmosphere I tried to go for, I like the dialogue, I really like some of the POV character’s train of thoughts. I’m very fond of it, for whatever reason, and (at least so far) it’s been one of the rare fics I actually enjoy re-reading even months after I posted it.
Tagging whoever sees it and wants to give it a shot (highly recommend, tbh. It’s nice to force yourself to look back at and discuss the works you’re proud of instead of laser-focusing on all the things you’re not 100% happy with, for a change!)
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captainkirkk · 4 years ago
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✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩
A collection of fics I’ve read (/reread) and thoroughly enjoyed in the past week-ish from all kinds of fandoms and genres.
ATLA
Fire Lily Oil by mindbending                
There’s an assassin in Sparky’s bedroom. It’s the only explanation for the extra heartbeat. The sounds of exertion. The ominous thumping of furniture. Fueled by both duty and friendship, Toph crashes in, ready for battle-
Only to get smacked by a faceful of Sokka’s new perfume.
Ambassador Sokka and His Very Bad (Turned Very Good) Idea by gaydaractivate04
Part 1 of The Adventures of Ambassador Sokka    
The war is officially over. With Fire Lord Ozai and his daughter dead, Fire Lord Zuko now takes the throne.
He takes the throne, and sets to fixing the destruction left over from the war, starting with his own people and ending with everyone else's.
That was how Sokka found himself, the next chief of the Southern Water Tribe, negotiating new treaties in the heart of the Fire Nation with the new Fire Lord.
Who, if he must say, is really good looking for a guy who spent the last few years in the cells beneath the palace.
BNHA
For The Greater Good by Cornflower_Blue       
Of course, from the moment he knew One For All was passable, Izuku had carried a quiet hope that All Might would pick him. But until that moment in the sunset, it had always been more like a far off fantasy, a bedtime story he would tell himself at night. How could he hold a candle to someone like Kacchan, who had the perfect heroic quirk that would only add to One For All.
But All Might had seen something in him, and Izuku had promised himself he would never let his hero regret giving him that chance at his dream.
He did kinda wish he had agreed to let All Might’s team install the panic button in his phone back when his name had been leaked though.
Harry Potter
the end of being alone by rexcorvidae                
When Harriet Potter asks Hagrid questions about her parents that he doesn't know the answers to, he directs her to one of their old friends, and in doing so changes the course of history.
The Happy Smiles Recipe by MayMarlow                
After Sirius's death Dumbledore is ready to send Harry once again back to the Dursleys. Molly Weasley is not about to let that happen.
Untamed
Five Dogs, One Cat by ryfkah (+ podfic)     
If you’ve ever believed me in anything, believe I want what’s best for Jin Ling, the first line of the letter reads.
Jiang Cheng has to stop and take a moment before he continues on to the next line:
 You must come to Carp Tower as soon as you can and lavish praise on the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen.
  scatter and sunder by silversshadow               
When Wei Wuxian dies at the Burial Mounds the backlash tears his soul apart.
The cultivation world is left to watch the pieces.
TMA
nor any more youth or age than there is now by Ravenesta    
The local Primary school has a new teacher. He is, to say the very least, odd.
A series of statements regarding the interactions of the townsfolk with one Jonathan Sims, never formally given.
"Have You Tried Turning It Off And On Again?" - How the Magnus Institute learned to embrace the IT ticketing system, upgraded their antivirus, and still found the time to teach one old man how to copy and paste by shinyopals
Part 2 of The Magnus Institute vs the 21st Century: a series of emails and IMs
I hope you find your new role as Head of the Institute as rewarding as captaining the Tundra, wrote Elias Bouchard, to Peter Lukas. There are so many people working there: all with their own interesting lives, and all desiring your attention and support. I'm sure you will relish the challenge it will bring and enjoy every moment spent with the fine men and women of the Institute. In time I'm confident they'll become like a family to you.
The Magnus Institute has a new boss. The Magnus Institute also has a new tech support technician. These two facts are unrelated, except they both happen at the same time.
Meanwhile Jon's woken up from being dead for six months and for once he's trying his best. He just wishes Martin would stop avoiding him and answer his messages...
TMA/TUA
just stopped believing in happy endings by  chahakyn              
“I know that. I’m just…” Sissy frowns, biting her lower lip. “I just wonder whether staying here would hurt less than going out there.”
Vanya covers Sissy’s hand with her own, turning to kiss the inside of her palm.
“It’ll hurt equally either way. Does it matter to you, as long as we’re together?”
-
The Archivist Vanya Hargreeves goes on a journey to hunt down her Avatar siblings in their respective Fear Domains post-Watcher's Crown.
(A Magnus Archives AU)
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sailoryooons · 2 years ago
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Carved | Three | jjk (m)
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→ Summary: Hundreds of years after the Underworld wins the war, Vaesen - demon kind - rule the Realms. The Vanir - creatures of light and the Heavens - are hunted and enslaved by Vaesen. When the demon prince Jungkook is given one of the Carved - angels who have been stripped of their wings - he has no idea what to do with you. You, however, have plans you are determined to see through. Even if it means death in the end.
→ Pairing: demon!Jungkook x angel!female reader
→ Rating: NSFW & 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging with this content. Any minors discovered interacting with adult content will be blocked immediately.
→ Type: Series
→ Genre: dystopian, urban fantasy, enemies to lovers, angst
→ Warnings: Graphic depiction of torture in numerous manners (cutting open, gutting, burning, use of a bug creature that goes down the mouth, breaking bones), graphic depictions of blood and gore, mental manipulation, references to past abuse and torture, explicit language, toxic family dynamics, sexual innuendos and implications, mention of scars and old injuries, unsettling descriptions of people used as inanimate objects, Taehyung being Taehyung (yes this is a warning), and non-consented touching (reader does not verbally consent to people touching her like they are at a petting zoo, it's not sexual)
♦ Main Masterlist: here
♦ Series Masterlist: here
♦ faq |taglist request |
A/N: Another fic where Hali has gone absolutely off the rails from the outline and I will now have to adjust wildly. This chapter totally did not go where I originally planned, but I think that's okay. I have to be honest with you: I have really been struggling to write and I apologize how much that shows in a lot of these scenes. It has nothing to do with the story - it's just really bad writers block where I am having trouble writing scenes and imagery and I am absolutely stumbling in my creative flow. I hope it doesn't feel as stilted to readers as it does to me. This chapter finally has some background information on why Jungkook is Mr. Cool and Calm all the time, and it really highlights readers personality aka she is not very nice. This story will not have an update until September, as all of my non-Yoongi works will be on hiatus for Hali's Happy Agust writing event! I hope you like this chapter but I understand if you don't, I'm going to find some windex to drink as soon as I post this :)
©2022 haliiimede. all rights reserved. Reposting and/or translating is not allowed, even if you credit the story. Works are only crossposted on AO3. Find my AO3 here.
Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgement or representation of real life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real life scenarios. Moreover, none of my works accurately reflect, represent or take a stance on the nuances of Korean culture, cities, people etc. BTS is not BTS culturally, intellectually, physically or representationally in my stories, and should be considered name and face stand-ins for made up characters.
/ PREVIOUS / NEXT CHAPTER /
Jungkook remembers the day he discovered what his mother looked like on the inside.
Sariel had beautiful, black hair and eyes like a burning sun. Jungkook remembers the warm gold of her skin, the dusky rose of her lips. Her eyes were round and soft like her face.
Jungkook has never asked Belial why out of all the angels he slaughtered he kept Sariel. He knows that it wasn’t love, and he knows that it wasn’t anything akin to affection. Jungkook fancies that before Sariel was Carved, she was a vicious angel who fought Belial every step of the way.
He looks at you and thinks that perhaps, history is repeating itself.
You say nothing as you’re pulled into the room by the back of the neck, Namjoon’s grip firm. You look at Jungkook once and there is a flare of violence so raw that Jungkook pushes off the wall, blinking in surprise.
Something ancient and angry slithers into the room and Namjoon pauses for a moment, grip on you loosening. It's just the three of you in the room. Jungkook feels himself hesitate, feels the way the presence presses against him as though Belial himself had entered the room. The Hellhound looks at Jungkook, who ignores him, eyes only for you.
You blink and it’s gone as quickly as the feeling arrived. You’re the listless Carved angel that you’re supposed to be.
"What the fuck was that?" Namjoon asks, looking at Jungkook.
"Never mind that, put her on the table before Belial comes down here and sees us fucking about."
But Jungkook knows – he knows something is wrong about you. You’re not what you’re supposed to be and no matter how much pain it will cause you, Jungkook needs to know. Needs to understand. And while he knows what it feels like to have someone he is connected to tortured, he thinks he can withstand it.
Withstand you.
Namjoon straps you to the table, the chains the only sound in the room. You offer your wrists freely, eyes starting up and the ceiling of the torture chamber.  
Jungkook thinks of the way his mom looked on the table, just as defeated and limp, glassy eyes staring into nothing. The Flayer – an unassuming demon by the name of Alastor – had opened her up layer by layer. Jungkook had watched, eye-wide and mouth open as the gold of her skin turned to pink skin. Then muscle and tendons. Then to stick bones.
Her stomach had spilled next. The inside of Sariel was just like everyone else, with organs made to function, though a bit differently from humans. Her blood was red with threads of gold. Jungkook had been hypnotized by the color of the ichor, watching it drip down the drain as the Flayer cracked her ribcage.
Seeing his mother turned inside out had changed Jungkook. Not only in the way one is changed after watching someone they love brutally torn apart and examined but much worse.
You will always be connected to me, Sariel had whispered to Jungkook one night when she found him crying in the wine cellar with nothing but the spiders for comfort. Do you feel that thread? That’s special – it is just for us. No one else can hear us when you call for me on this. It’s our secret.
Later, Jungkook learned that being able to connect to his mother’s mind was not something common. She was not always present – most of the time as a Carved angel, she moved throughout the house like a ghost. But there were moments of clarity when her mind flashed, sharp as a razor and Jungkook would wake up in the middle of the night feeling her rage and fury as Belial fucked her into the mattress. 
Alastor enters the room and Jungkook wonders if the demon is going to make you spill just like his mother. Alastor looks human enough at first. He’s shorter than most, with oily black hair and an unremarkable face. It’s his eyes that are different: blood red irises threaded with black.
For as long as Jungkook can remember, Alastor has been the Flayer for Belial and his family. Jungkook watches Alastor move silent through his torture chamber, found in a deep basement beneath the estate.
The room is cold. It has high ceilings despite being a basement. Metal beams run across, and a sprinkler system is hardwired to help wash the blood and gore from the ground. Some beams have pulleys affixed with chains, made for dangling victims.
White floors made of bone mixed with cement spread beneath Jungkook’s boots. It had taken Belial several attempts to find the right texture for the floor. Marble, though elegant, became too slippery and was causing accidents as the Flayer slid on a filmy piece of lung. Concrete was too porous, the blood seeping in and refusing to come out until Belial hired a witch to spell the stain from the ground.
Bone, though? Bone was a good element to mix in, giving the cement a smooth finish that doesn’t create slippage when painted with bodily fluids but isn’t so texture that the blood and bits of flesh cling to the ground.
Metal cabinets reflect the fluorescent light of the room. Jungkook can make out his distorted reflection from where he leans on the wall, arms crossed over his chest and one ankle draped over the other. You’re strapped to a medical table, steel manacles forged with brimstone locked to your wrists and ankles.
You stare at the ceiling. Namjoon comes to lean on the wall against Jungkook, a question in his eyes. Jungkook gives a barely perceptible shake of his head – they will discuss the feeling from a few minutes ago later.
Belial enters the room as Alastor slides black gloves on. Jungkook doesn’t know what kind of demon the Flayer is, he just knows that for whatever reason, some Vanir blood burns him. Jungkook recalls the sizzle of flesh as his mother dripped dripped dripped on the ground and Alastor’s wrist.
“Thank you for coming, Alastor.” Belial’s voice is reserved, but polite. Jungkook feels the weight of his father’s presence like a weighted blanket, pushing on his shoulders, his body, his mind. “I’d like to ask the seraph some questions.”
“Ah,” Alastor speaks. His voice is soft as a whisper, Jungkook’s skin tingling. “So it is one of the seraphim.” He clicks his teeth, linking his hands behind his back and leaning over you. “Exquisite. Quite beautiful, this Carved. It is yours?”
“It’s the boy’s.”
Alastor turns to look at Jungkook, a smile splitting his face. It’s rare to see such a delighted expression on the Flayer’s face. “How wonderful. Where did you get it?”
Jungkook recounts Taehyung buying you for him. He goes over the details from the purchase, having memorized your data and limited history. If you’re bothered about being spoken to like you aren’t there, you don’t show it. Gone is that ancient flickering of anger, replaced by void staring.
“Does the Carved not answer questions, Lord?” Alastor asks, slithering to a rolling medical cart with towels and an array of tools: scissors, knives, scalpels, things that look like corkscrews, pliers, and other torture devices.
“You know as well as I do that once Carved, these creatures become stupid. It will not remember anything of what it is unless we make it.” Belial looks at Alastor. “You’ll remember the answers we received the last time we did this.”
Alastor grunts. “Sariel’s recollection through trauma was most enlightening. Pity.” He leans over you. Jungkook feels a flicker – something like impatience from you. He cocks his head to the side and reaches toward the feeling, but it’s already gone. “Daughter of Michael though,” Alastor notes. “That is something.”
Jungkook cannot wrap his head around that. Daughter of Michael. Perhaps that is where you get the fire to fight the Carving. Jungkook knows you’re fighting it – can feel it in the way you lock him out of your mind, in the way that rage of yours spills over like hot liquid. He knows something is wrong with you and he doesn’t know what.
So he keeps his mouth shut as Alastor takes a small scalpel, brandishing it in the light. Belial stands next to the Flayer, hands behind his back as they look down at you. Jungkook watches with rapt attention as the blade slices through a thin layer of skin, red blood laced with gold rushing to the surface of your forearm where he makes the slice.
You don’t react. Jungkook reaches for that mental tether between the two of you, but it’s stronger than ever. He is unsure how you do that, how you lock him out. His mother was never able to do that, had never taught Jungkook how.
Blood tricks down your arm as Alastor hums. He has peeled the thinnest layer of skin off your arm. He tosses the layer of flesh behind him. Jungkook’s sensitive ears pick up on the wet slap of it on the floor just as Alastor touches the scalpel to your arm again, this time giving a deeper cut.
You still do not react. Jungkook can feel nothing behind your mental wall, no matter how he presses at it. As the Flayer works on testing your pain tolerance, you remain the empty shell you’re supposed to be.
No one speaks. The air conditioning hums and Jungkook watches as the Flayer digs his blade deeper. Your arm becomes redder. He can smell your blood – sweet and citrusy like orange blossom. Blood drips onto the floor, slowly inching toward the drain in the middle of the room. It is not much, but it makes Jungkook shift slightly.
You smell wonderful. It makes his stomach curl, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment before he takes a deep breath in and then out before he can lose control over something so little. Namjoon casts a glance at Jungkook, but he ignores the Hellhound in favor of watching Alastor put down the scalpel.
“She’s a glaedia,” the Flayer observes. “I believe her pain tolerance is going to be higher than most, and she is Carved. You recall Sariel’s tolerance?” Belial makes an unimpressed hum. “May I skip to more severe limit tests?”
“You may.”
Carefully, Alastor picks up a small torch affixed to a propane tank. Jungkook feels a flicker on the other side of your mental walls. He reaches out but you are still unavailable to him. He senses you there, though, on the other side of your barrier, prowling as your eyes register the blue flame as the Flayer ignites it.
“Hm,” Belial hums, leaning over you slightly. “It recognizes the danger of being burned. Carry on.”
Without hesitation, Alastor holds the flame to the flesh of your bicep. You pull in the restraints, a sound grunting out between clenched teeth. The blue flame melts at your flesh, the smell of charred skin entering the room. It smells like any other cooking meat, intensified by your orange blossom notes.
You whine behind a mouth pressed shut, pulling your arm from the flame. Jungkook can sense the rage rolling behind your mental barriers, white caps slamming against a cliff. He pushes at your thoughts again, hoping that he can find a weakness.
There are no gaps.
Alastor removes the flame from your arm and you shiver. The skin of your arm is ruined – blackened on the edges as though the skin has rotted away. Red blisters bubble immediately and Jungkook can see the fat of your arm, slick and melted. In just a few seconds, Alastor has given you third-degree burns, verging on fourth.
Belial leans over you again, imperious eyes looking down. “Are you a part of Libram?” You shake your head against the table. “Again, Alastor. New flesh, please.”
The Flayer complies. Again, Jungkook can feel your suffering. He pushes on that mental barrier again, desperate to use your pain as a distraction to sift through your thoughts and memories. Jungkook remembers the way he could look through his mother’s mind, unguarded and open for the taking. Her mind had been cluttered and unorganized after her Carving, but every once in a while, Jungkook had stumbled on something interesting. Something new.
You still don’t give. He pushes harder and you snap back at him, an electric barb zapping at Jungkook. He recoils. Namjoon puts an arm on Jungkook, checking to see if he is okay but Jungkook shakes him off, nose flaring.
A Carved should not be able to fight back. Jungkook knows this. He knows you know this. And yet you keep him out, and you manage to keep your mouth shut as Alastor flicks the flame off again and Belial asks you the question once more. Are you a part of Libram?
It’s a risk you’re taking by shutting Jungkook out. Jungkook is sure of it. By not letting him in, you expose the loopholes in your Carving and reveal that something is wrong with you.
Jungkook considers telling Belial. He looks at his father, who sighs in annoyance when you shake your head to his question again. He weighs the pros and cons of exposing you: It will likely gain favor with his father. Belial is always particularly fond when Jungkook can provide observations. He is also thousands of years old – he must know of some cases of the Carved being broken.
But for Jungkook to tell his father means that Belial will most likely take you from him. It means that you will no longer be his, no matter what Jungkook says. And worst of all, it will expose to Belial that Jungkook can communicate with the seraphim, something he has hidden for years.
For Jungkook to admit his connection to you is to sign off on his death. It doesn’t matter that Belial might find Jungkook a useful tool to hunt down other seraphim or to kill his son altogether for being more angel than he originally believed.
So Jungkook decides against it. Instead, he settles on the wall again, watching Alastor put away the torch.
“Are you a member of Libram?” Belial asks.
“I do not know what Libram is, dominus.”
The Flayer walks to a metal cabinet, pulling open one of the doors. Jungkook can see an array of glasses with things inside of them, but the door is in the way. The Flayer removes a jar and closes the door behind him with a soft click before turning around.
A creature with a thin, black body and many legs writhes in the jar. Jungkook recognizes the burrower demon, with little pinchers for mouths and no eyes to dick into a host’s body and burrow through flesh, eating and churning.  
He sets the jar on the table. The burrower demon skitters on the glass, legs tap tap tapping as it waits to be released. Your eyes settle on the jaw and your nose flares, chest rising and falling as you begin to pant. Your eyes flickered up to Belial.
“Do you know what this is, Carved?” You swallow and nod once. “Hm. How old are you?”
“I don’t know, dominus.”
It’s the first time you’ve spoken, voice ragged and laced with pain. Belial scoffs. “What is the name of this creature, Carved?”
Your eyes flicker to the black insect in the jar. “A yomi worm, dominus.”
“The very demons who were created from Izanami’s body and devour the souls in Yomi. The Flayer is going to put this demon in you, Carved, and I’m going to watch it burrow and make a nest in your stomach unless you can remember who and what you are. Do you know where Uriel lies?”
“I do not know the name Uriel.”
“Do it,” Belial orders.
Alastor unscrews the jar carefully. With a pair of tongs, he removes the yomi worm. It thrashes, seeking heat and flesh, its legs undulating. Instead of pulling at the restraints, Jungkook is surprised to see you turn your head toward the ceiling and open your mouth.
It’s a tiny moment of defiance hidden as obedience. Jungkook can see the way you stick out your pink tongue, staring straight again, brows creased as Alastor drops the creature right between your open lips. Jungkook winces as you immediately choke, the creature crawling down your throat.
You sputter on the table. Jungkook sees the bulge as the demon burros down your throat. Spit and blood leaked out the side of your lips and for the first time that day, you reward Belial and Alastor with a scream. It splits the air, deep and guttural, blood spraying as you do it.
Jungkook reaches his mind out to yours and finds that your barriers are up, but weak. He presses on them again, determined to get through. It’s more like finding a hole in the wall now as he pushes up against you. He can feel you fighting him, but you’re busy fighting the demon eating its way through your chest.
The mental wall collapses. A rush of air sweeps into Jungkook’s lungs in victory, his lips curling upward into a smirk.
Pain slams into him. He goes rigid on the wall, fingers digging into his sides to steady himself. His intake of air is sharp enough that Namjoon bends over, murmuring a question. Jungkook can’t hear him, but he pushes Namjoon away, trying to keep a hold on his composure as his father watches you scream on the table, too distracted to realize Jungkook is having a fit.
It feels like he is pulled into a vortex of color and feeling. Jungkook is trapped, trying to find his way out of your head. He sees snatches of red and gold, white wings falling from the sky, blood spraying the field, the hall of champions of a Titan Match. He hears screams and crying, hears the ring swords, hears chanting that he vaguely thinks is the seraphim legion.
Heat licks at him. Jungkook does not remember feeling anything as hot as this. White lights explode across his vision as he grits his teeth and tries to gain control.
“You wanted in,” a voice growls, divine rage behind every word. “So I let you in, Lord Jungkook. Welcome.”
Jungkook is no longer in the present. He’s standing on a killing field turned black. Ash drifts around him and settles on his face. He looks up – the sky is red, as though the sun has cracked open and spilled crimson yolk across the world.
Something else falls from the sky. He reaches out a hand and catches a white feather, singed on the edges. He realizes that the feathers belong to angel wings. He watches as it disintegrates in his hand, dust in the wind.
“What is this place?” Jungkook asks into the dead air.
“It is the after,” your voice answers. It is still a growl, hot and angry. “This is not where I want you.”
The scenery changes. Jungkook stands in the Flayer’s torture chamber. Except it is no longer you on the table – it is his mother. Something twists in his chest as Alastor cracks his mother’s chest cavity open. He feels what she feels, he sees what she sees.
His mother’s mind is broken and frantic. She reaches out to him and latches on, all claws and teeth as she sinks into his thoughts, his soul, his being and holds on for dear life. Jungkook cannot shake her off – bends over at the waist and gasps in pain. He feigns being sick, even though he knows Belial will beat him for it later.
Jungkook skitters into the hall, gasping for air and feverish. His mother’s screams paint the walls of his mind and her pain is in every corner.
“You felt her die.” Jungkook looks up as you stand above him, eyes shadowed. You’re in his mind, in his thoughts. He feels you pressing down on him. “You watched him cut her open and throw her guts on the ground, digging around for secrets.”
“How are you here?” Jungkook thinks – he demands. “What are you?”
“I am Carved.”
He glances up at you. Feels sweat on his face. “You’ve invaded my mind.”
“No,” you disagree. “You have invaded mine. Here is your first lesson on entering the mind of a seraph: the connection goes both ways. Once in, you cannot hide.” Sariel screams in the other room and Jungkook shivers. It feels as though his mother is alive again, as though her blood is slicking his boots and staining the room with her scent. “Why did he torture Sariel?”
He looks up. “How do you know my mother’s name?”
“I was legion. She was legion.”
“You told Belial you were not legion.”
“You told Belial you didn’t know I was.”
He frowns. You state at him, beautiful. Enchanting. Fierce. “You said ‘was’, not ‘is’.”
“Was,” you agree. “If there were enough seraphim to make a legion, you would know. Sariel was second in command to Uriel in the 7th.” Your eyes slide to him as Jungkook pants through searing pain that bleeds deep into him. He feels it in his stomach, his pelvis, his back – it blooms and bleeds and spreads. “Belial was looking for lilins.”
“Why would my mother know where lilin’s are?”
“Lilith kidnapped and raped Uriel for years and whelped the lilins that won you the war.” You tilt your head, eyes studying him. “Your mother led the 7th after Uriel’s capture. You do not know this?”
“No,” he grits out. “Because my mother was Carved she didn’t remember who or what she was for the most part.” A high-pitched scream interrupts him. It does belong to his mother. Jungkook turns and looks at the door that leads to the torture chamber. “Is that you screaming?”
“It is. Realistic, isn’t it?”
“How can you be here and there at once?”
“How can you?”
He grunts in annoyance. “Tell Belial what you are and he’ll stop. He'll probably kill you, but at least your suffering will be over.”
“There is nothing to tell. If you think this is suffering, you know nothing of being Carved.”
“You were Carved wrong.”
“And you are not endarkened.” Jungkook pauses. Your lip curls with satisfaction, knowing you hit a nerve. “I know an enlightened when I see one. When I first saw you, I didn’t see it. You hide it well. You parade around pretending that your demon blood is dominant so he’ll keep you, but it’s not.”
“So you’re blackmailing me?”
“I’m offering you silence for silence.”
“You are my slave.”
You move so fast that Jungkook doesn’t see what happens. All he knows is that he is on the floor, your nails digging into his throat. He can’t feel his limbs to fight you, all he can feel is something burning so hot that he screams and screams and screams.
Jungkook tastes blood. His ears begin to ring. His vision pulses red on the edges and he thinks he’s going to die. He sees his mother’s face. Empty and blank. He sees her body, ribs free of muscle and flesh, painted red and empty as Alastor walks away from her.
“You are beneath me in ways you cannot fathom,” you growl to him. Again, he feels that ancient anger roll through you.
It occurs to Jungkook that you are too calm for the situation. You have too much control. He thinks about the way you let Namjoon lead you to the room and strap you to the table. The way that you cut down the malakim with just summoning concentrated air. How now, you hold him prisoner in his own mind while being tortured?
The heat is so prominent and stifling that Jungkook struggles to string together thoughts. Words and emotions become a tangled mess. The blue flame flickers in your endless eyes and he feels like every second he spends putting the pieces together is another moment he is about to turn to ash.
“You let Belial torture you to appear innocent and you let me in your mind when the pain was enough to trap me,” Jungkook says. The words are like lava in his mouth. It isn’t a question. He can feel the satisfaction hum through you, though his vision is still pulsing. He thinks he might pass out. “What do you want from me?”
 “Do we have a deal or not? My silence for yours, seraph.”
“I am not a seraph.”
“You are seraph dominant. Do we have a deal? You will not make it out of this room without me.”
Jungkook thinks about the night on his balcony. The mist on his skin, the ebbing darkness, and the curiosity of stepping off into the shadows and letting the fall swallow him hole. He feels that same pull now, but instead of stepping off a building, Jungkook is drawn to you. Is interested in you.
So much of his life has been boring. So much of his life has been spent alone. Now you exist, a strange angel who is Carved but Not Carved, and who lures even the greatest of demons into traps to do your bidding.
He wonders what would happen if you kill him now. Surely you would make it past Alastor and Namjoon. But would you make it past Belial? The seraphim are not the only creatures who can rival the likes of the Triumvirate, but there aren’t so many of those left.
But maybe – just maybe you can help him figure out this existence of his. So against his judgment, Jungkook relaxes under your fiery grip. Comes to his conclusion.
You hum, as though you have made a decision. Heat flares, and just as Jungkook thinks he will burn to nothing, he concedes. “Deal.”
The connection severs. The searing heat threatening to melt his existence vanishes. The world swims into view and Jungkook blinks a few times to gather his bearings. He is still leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. Namjoon gives Jungkook a side eye that Jungkook continues to ignore as he takes a deep breath.
He feels his hands shaking as he stares at you. You’re bloodier than he remembers you being. The yomi worm is back in its jar, slick with red fluid. Belial turns on his heel, walking over to Jungkook, who straightens.
“This Carved is useless,” Belial tells Jungkook gruffly. “Its mind is too broken. Only you could find a Carved seraph that is truly of no use to me. Regardless, bring it to the party tonight. I’m sure the others would love to see your new toy.”
Without another word, Belial leaves the room. Jungkook doesn’t know what they asked you. Doesn’t know how much time is passed. You’re barely breathing on the table, chest rising and falling rapidly. Jungkook strides forward as Alastor begins to peel his gloves off, covered in slick blood. The drain drips as the flow of fluid slowly slides down.
Your eyes are fluttering up at the ceiling. You’re covered in red stains. Some are dry and flaking, others are wet and sticky. There is a massive hole in your chest and Jungkook can see that the bleeding has already stopped. Your tissue is pulling back together as you heal yourself.
Suddenly it’s not you that Jungkook is looking at. It’s his mother. He sees the tears slide down her face as the light fades. He sees that she is not healing. Her insides are empty, scooped out like the pit of a cherry. Not once did he stop them. Not once did he ask them to spare her.
Jungkook had stood and watched the Flayer pick at his mother’s bones and insides for secrets.
Belial was looking for lilins.
Your words come back to him. How could Belial think Sariel, broken and fragile could know anything? How had Jungkook not known that his mother led a legion of heaven in the war? There are so many questions spinning in his mind as he looks down at you.
Carved, but Not Carved. Bound to him, but disobedient.
You’re the answer to questions he has always had and those he has never thought to ask.
With a grimace, Jungkook reaches for that mental tether. There is no wall, but you are wary of him. Your mind isn’t all heat and fire and pain this time – it is watery and dark, like the mist off of Jungkook’s balcony that night of his birthday.
Are you okay? He asks the question to you before he knows what he is doing – the words just appear in his mind.
Life flickers in your eyes. Your pupils shrink as you focus on him, razor-sharp and present.
 Pain is inevitable, your mind answers. Your skin is stitching together, drawing Jungkook’s gaze from your eyes to where he watching the crawling fibers of flesh writhe and twist until you are whole.
Pain is constant. You sit up, swaying a bit. Neither Namjoon nor Jungkook reaches out to help as you struggle to sit up. You grimace, but otherwise remain sitting and painting. Your eyes find his again when your mind whispers, Pain is power.
-
Jungkook doesn’t speak to you on the ride home. You watch the neon city blur by you. As the car stops in traffic, you look up at the purple and pink glow of twisted shapes and holograms. Your face is painted blue through the tinted window as a holographic nymph with lush curves bends over, puckering her lips and blowing a kiss into the rain-slicked streets outside.
The car moves again and the advertisement is gone.
Black and clear umbrellas thrumming with lights pop open and move along the street like beetles. The sidewalk is crushed with Vaesen coming and going. It’s the weekend, you realize, and there are long lines to get into glittery clubs. Vanir stand in the rain loyally next to Vaesen masters.
People and the crush of bodies fade as you’re driven to the nicer part of town. You’re wrapped in a towel to not get blood in the car. You’re thankful that you did not have to walk barefoot out of the manor district to a doctor, but you’re on edge.
Your insides churn as though you could feel the yomi worm still squirming inside of you. It had been unpleasant, feeling a living thing that was not a part of you chew its way through your insides. It had been more horrific to feel it than the pain had been.
Pain is inevitable, and little truly hurt you anymore.
Jungkook had been a good distraction. You wondered each time he pressed up against your mind if he would give up the next time. You want to see how hard he would push. What he knew. Your suspicions that he knew absolutely nothing about his seraph heritage were right.  
The moment you weakened your barrier and let him in, you saw. You had no idea that Sariel had been taken by Belial all of those years. You wanted to pick through Jungkook’s memories. To see what he knew about her, to see how she had been. The last time you had seen Sariel was before the war had been decided when she was leading the 7th in Uriel’s stead.
 Looking at Jungkook now, you see it. He has her round eyes and soft nose, her tiny beauty marks, and soft lips. But the cheekbones and structure of his face are Belial, and so is the shadow that looms over him. Though Jungkook is angel dominant, you can feel that dark thread of power he gets from his father.
Ari is nowhere to be found when you entire the apartment. Jungkook dismisses Namjoon entirely. The hellhound raises his brow, eyes flickering between you and Jungkook.
“What?” Jungkook snaps, beginning to unbutton his shirt. “Problem, Namjoon?”
“What the fuck happened?” Namjoon’s eyes are narrowed at you. “You kept fidgeting at the beginning of the questioning and then you just… it was like no one was home for the next three hours.”
Jungkook doesn’t answer right away. You stand mutely, looking at the floor and wondering how long you’ll have to wait for Namjoon to leave. You want a shower. You want to think. You want to plan. But you can do none of those things with the keen eyes of the dog looking at you.
“Nothing happened,” Jungkook sighs, looking up at Namjoon. His shirt is open down the middle now, revealing tan, tone skin. Your eyes flicker along the muscle, smooth and flat. He either doesn’t notice you staring at him or doesn’t care. “As Belial said, I have a useless Carved.”
Namjoon grunts. “Yeah.” He jams his finger on the elevator button and steps into it when the doors open. “Useless.”
The doors shut and the elevator whirs as it takes Namjoon down to the ground floor. Without him in the room, you drop your act and look at Jungkook directly in the face. He’s already staring at you, eyes unreadable, brow pinched.
“So can I shower?”
“So you’re not going to even pretend to be submissive now?”
“I asked permission for a shower.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m just a dumb Carved, dominus. I don’t know anything.”
Jungkook growls and you grin. He’s on edge. You can feel the coiled muscles, feel the way his stress is mounting. The cool exterior he kept on the car ride to the estate had frayed after your encounter in your minds, and it was fraying more now that you weren’t pretending.
“You know your demon side is pretty close to frenzying, right?” Surprise flickers briefly in his eyes. Otherwise, he remains silent. “It’s why you were so easy to lure in. You weren’t even thinking about the consequences of invading my mind. You went head first, never considering it could have been a trap.”
“You’ve made your point. You’re smart, I’m not.”
You laugh. It’s sharp and loud, surprising you both as you snap your mouth shut. “Please,” you scoff. “Now is not the time to be humble. You’re not unintelligent. You’ve lived – how long, now? Pretending to be endarkened?”
“A long time.”
You smirk. “Your stupidity is coming from your demonic need to lose control. I suggest finding an outlet and doing just that, dominus.”
Turning on your heel, you head to your assigned room where there is an en suite bathroom. Jungkook growls and appears in front of you, quick and angry. You stop, leveling a stare at him. He glares at you and his fists are clenched. He’s probably never been defied before you. That alone sends a little thrill through you.
“We need to establish some ground rules,” he grits out. “First, you are Vanir. You will not disrespect me in my own house. I should just be fucking rid of you-“
“Then do it.” Jungkook stops short. You shrug. “You have questions. You think I have answers. I could say the same for you. But if it will make you feel better, I will treat you as an equal if you return the favor.”
Jungkook hesitates. You wait. You have all of the time in the world. You’re extending him a courtesy – at least, that’s what you tell yourself. You try to convince yourself that you let him in to use him. Because Jungkook is an asset. You know that to be true, but you also know it’s not the only reason you’re in front of him, dropping the submissive façade.
It’s a risk you calculated after being led down to be torture. Every victory must come at a loss, and though you already miss the shadow that the submissive, Carved slave provided you, something like an instinct is telling you that you need Jungkook.
So you let him in. Just a little. Just enough to know that he can’t push you around the way he thought he can. If he can’t consider you an equal, you need him to consider you a threat. You need him afraid enough of exposing his secret to keep yours.
“That won’t work,” he sighs. “You cannot be my equal.”
“Behind closed doors,” you amend. “In front of your friends and family, I will be the docile Carved you need. But here, when it’s just us, free me from the burned of this bond. Respect earned is respect given.”
“This shouldn’t even be possible.”
“Like you said. I was Carved wrong.”
His brows pinch. “How?”
“Do we have an agreement or not? My silence in exchange for yours. My respect in exchange for yours with limitations.”
“What is it you want? Why let me know that you’re not obedient at all?”
“Freedom,” you murmur. “I want freedom. And because you’re seraphim. It has to mean something.”
There’s a stretch of silence. You’re itchy, the dried blood on your skin flaking off and beginning to peel. You also feel uncomfortable, the nerve endings still healing from having been split open. The phantom feeling of the yomi worm.
“One fuck up from you and I’ll kill you,” Jungkook decides. There’s a storm in his gaze that tells you he means it. He’ll try to kill you, whether he thinks he can win or not. “But you will do what I say in public. And in private, you will answer my questions. I want to know about Sariel.”
You bow your head once. “Of course, dominus.”
Jungkook lets you pass. You strip down in the bathroom, throwing your clothes in the sink. They reek of blood and fear. Because you had been afraid, at one point. Afraid that you would lose your grip on yourself when trying to force Jungkook into submission. Afraid you would mess up the performance while you screamed into the ceiling of the torture room.
What Alastor had done hurt. You ached and as you turned the shower on, the rushing water could not drown out remembering the sound of your snapping bones. As the water burned your skin and turned the tile scarlet, you could not stop thinking about choking the yomi worm down.
It has not been easy. You had not had to split your focus like that in a long time, to be in the present and doing one thing while being in your mind and doing another. It was a skill that all seraphs learned. To retreat into the mind and be able to communicate. It was necessary during the war.
You can feel Jungkook moving around the house. Now that you know the shape of his mind, he is more familiar to you. His mind feels like perfumed smoke, the smell of cedarwood with a hint of fire and brimstone.
Overpowering him had been so easy. Even now as you squeeze the red from your hair, you can sense the edge in him. Though his mother’s blood is dominant, there is a thread of untethered rage in him. You felt it when you connected, felt it when you had pinned him down. You wonder how long he has been keeping the beast at bay, how long he has tried to control himself.
Out of the shower and in front of the fogged mirror, you wipe your hand back and forth to see yourself. Your nakedness doesn’t offend you anymore. Your body doesn’t change much with time, except how fed you appear.
Now, you look at the pink scar on your chest. While you had been struggling to paint pictures and wrestle Jungkook to submission, the yomi worm had done work on you. As an angel, you could recover from most injuries. The only exceptions were weapons made of demon stone or adamas, hellfire or heavenly fire, and occasionally being blown apart by other creatures of the world.
You’ve avoided death thus far. The Flayer hadn’t even been close.
In fresh clothes, you lurk in the kitchen in search of water. Jungkook enters, also freshly washed and looking at you warily. You slide him a glass of water tentatively. He doesn’t thank you.
Damp hair hands into his eyes. His short sleeves allow you to see the winding dragon tattoos that he has on both of his arms, the rest of the artwork vanishing in his sleeve. Jungkook is beautiful. That much is obvious. But you had the way you want to seek out and brush your thoughts against his.
Feeling someone else in the world is an old memory. You remember the last time you felt the presence of the seraphim – it had been before you were Carved. And that seraph was long turned to dust, her name forgotten. But not by you.
“You remember things from before you were Carved.” Jungkook’s voice is soft. It’s not a question. He sips his water and rounds the counter, putting it between you like a buffer. “How?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t remember everything. I am still Carved. If you order me to do something, I feel that command.”
“Set the glass of water down.”
Your hand reacts immediately. You lean to put it on the counter, but you stop the motion. You make the decision. The interaction is overridden, and you bring the glass back to do. “I can decide to not obey, but it will be my first instinct.”
“That’s… confusing. What about when you’re choked?”
“Chokes are about flow of energy and power. Does not seem to be linked.”
“You don’t know why you’re like this?”
“No,” you lie. You are the best liar. Jungkook doesn’t seem to sense it, so you continue, “I don’t know everything from before and it is often confusing. When I was Carved, it was like waking up from a dream. I don’t know what was real and what was not, but I’ve gotten better at being able to tell.”
“You met Sariel?”
“I think so.”
“You think so or you know so?”
You bristle at his tone. “I think so. I remember her face. You have the same eyes, though yours are black like Belials.”
“You’ve never met Belial before?”
“No.” He hums. You finish your water, setting the empty glass on the table. “What was growing up with Sariel like?”
“What do you mean?”
You roll your eyes. “I mean what I said. What was it like having a Carved for a mother.”
Jungkook shrugs. “She wasn’t very present. I don’t know what you want me to tell you.” He looks at his phone. “Get dressed,” he sighs. “We have a party to go to tonight. It’s my brother’s birthday.”
“Why do I have to go?”
Jungkook gives you a grin like the cat who ate the canary. “I get to show you off, Reaper.”
-
“This dress is ridiculous,” you deadpan, looking at the gauzy, see-through material. You rub the fabric between your fingers. It’s softer than anything you’ve felt in a long time. You think perhaps that it’s fae spider silk, but you’re not sure. “This is what you want me to wear?”
“It was sent by Taehyung as a gift. And as I haven’t purchased a dress for you, it’s the only option I have.”
“It’s ridiculous.”
“I thought we agreed with compliance?”
You give him round eyes. “No one else is around.”
Jungkook does not look amused. Ari has helped you apply a sheen of gold to your skin. When you move, it catches the light, making it look like you are glowing and divine. Ari has also made sure that none of your hair covers the twisted scars on your back, proving that you are Carved.
Dressed head-to-toe in black, Jungkook looks good enough that your stomach had flipped when he walked into the room. Tight, black slacks with polished shoes, a black button-up that is just as sheer as your dress tucked into his pants, showing off his tiny waist, paired with a black suit jacket threaded with glittering gold.
Kohl lines his eyes lightly enough that their roundness is intensified. You see a dusting of glitter on his cheeks, making him look so beautiful that you have refused to look at him since he walked into the room. Letting him in on your scheming was bad enough. Feeling that flippant attraction because he is physically appealing is worse.
“Why is Taehyung sending me gifts?”
He snorts. “I promise it’s not for you.”
“Oh? Are you meant to wear it?”
“Funny.” Jungkook’s tone suggests that he does not, in fact, find your joke funny. “Wear it or go naked. Vanir go naked all the time.”
“I’ll be naked regardless,” you grunt. It’s not the nakedness that bothers you. You’ve been put on display and posed for nudity and shoved to your hands and knees and fucked in public. Fucked any time people wanted. Groped, fondled, tongued. “It’s just a shitty dress.”
Jungkook’s mouth twitches upward but he says nothing, drifting out of the room.
You slide the material over your body. It has no back, but is snug on your frame. It has long sleeves, stoned with tiny gold pieces that make you look like the night sky when you move. The material does nothing to hide your body, breasts visible and held firm by the fabric. You’re glad that at least the skirt is well-blended and doesn’t show the rest of you, though it is short and you suspect that one wrong move will show your ass.
There are two, thin straps that dandle down the back like ornaments. They’re silver, lariat-style chains that hang backward down your spine, flanking either shoulder blade. The two dangling ends are tipped with a little wing. You look in the mirror and grit your teeth, seeing the delicate jeweled wings glint in the night.
Funny.
You slide on heels before you leave the room. The stiletto is razor thin and uncomfortable. It takes you a moment to find your stride as you enter the living room where Jungkook is thanking someone at the elevator door, box in hand. He turns as you enter the room, brows shooting up to his hairline as you stand awkwardly in the living area.
Your eyes drop to the flat, square box in his hand.
“What’s that?”
Jungkook wordlessly walks over to you, shoes clicking on the title. You hold your breath as his scent wraps itself around you. You focus on his fingers as he opens the lid, trying not to think about the way his shadowy mind lingers just on the outside of yours. The thread between you is distant, but there. At a safe distance, where it hums softly, linking you.
A black, velvet collar is nestled in the box. A large, light blue diamond winks in the light of the kitchen. The exquisite squared cut is larger than a grape and looks heavy. “You have to wear it.”
“I know.” You glance up at him. “It is impersonalized, how will people know its for you?”
“Everyone will know what it is,” he affirms. “Turn around.”
You objey on instint, showing him your back. It’s silence between the two of you as Jungkook reaches his arms around you, fingers brushing your skin. His warm where he touches you, a tingle going through your skin. Your eyes flutter shut as he clasps the collar around your throat, snug and perfect.
Heat rolls off of Jungkook. He smells heady and wonderful, making your head swim. His hands leave the choker and his fingers brush near your shoulder blades, stopping before he gets to the scars.
“Nice touch with the wings,” Jungkook grunts. “Taehyung has an interesting sense of humor.”
“I am Vanir. I will always be the butt of the joke.” When Jungkook says nothing, you step away and face him, gesturing vaguely to your throat. “Why will everyone recognize this?”
“It was my mother.”
“That’s… weird.”
Jungkook shrugs. “I haven’t commissioned you one yet. Deal with it or I can find you a spare shoelace to wear instead.”
Namjoon is standing next to the car with the door open when you exit the building. He glares at you but you cast your eyes down to the floor, pulling on the persona that you promise Jungkook you would wear for the evening.
The interior of the car is cool and tense as Namjoon slides in next to Jungkook. You blink lazily, gazing out the window as the driver pulls into the road and rolls up the privacy window after Namjoon rattles off the address.
“Why is it dressed so nicely?”
You fight the urge to give him a sour expression and to tell him that jealousy is a disease. Instead, you continue to stare dully out the window, the world a kaleidoscope of colors. It seems like your torture was days ago and not hours ago.
Losing yourself in your thoughts is easy. You don’t hear Namjoon and Jungkook, although you know that they’re talking. You lose a sense of yourself as you think back to Belial’s venomous voice asking you his questions. Who are you? Are you connected to Libram? What is your association with the legion? What do you remember? Do you know where the last of the lilins are?
A waste of questions. You were not involved with Libram, which was sure to be disappointing. You had no desire to meddle in the little rebellion they were putting on.
There is no association with the legion because there is no legion – your old association is nothing. It’s bone and dust and faded from the world.
Your memories are scattered and a cacophony of noises and images that are often hard to make out, no matter how many times Belial tried to trigger some sort of trauma response from you to remember like he kept asking you.
And as for the lilins? The most worthless question of them all. The lilins were gone. Belial’s obsession with hunting them down and Lilith’s vow to never breed with the seraphim ever again had secured the creature’s fate. You hadn’t heard of someone even mentioning lilins in years.
Though Belial had not gotten what he wanted out of you, he had stirred up memories you didn’t want to remember.
Angels falling from the sky. A blue whip flaying you open. Blood spattered promises. Tears as you let go of Haniel’s hand. The knife of your first carving. Cat-like eyes leering at you in the dark. Driving the knife through your first seraph. Blue fire, hot and blinding.
You flinch when Jungkook puts his hand on you. Namjoon is standing outside of the car. You realize you’re at your destination, and Jungkook is looking at you with pursed lips and a cock to his head. “You all right?” he murmurs.
“Does it matter?”
He shrugs. “No, but I was being polite.”
The demon slides from the limo, leaving you to scramble after him. As expected, the hem of your dress slides up, the curve of your ass sneaking out. Flashing cameras are there to capture the image. You keep your eyes cast down, gritting your teeth.
Unexpectedly, Jungkook reaches down and yanks the hemline of the dress back over your ass. You don’t dare lift your eyes, but you freeze under the movement.
“Try not to flash your ass unless I ask you to.”
Your nose flares. “Yes, dominus.”
Again, you fall silent as you enter the luxurious hotel and take the elevator to the party. You’re still dizzy from the flashes of cameras, but it fades as the elevator doors open and unveils the world beyond.
So we’ll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies….
The quote comes from a memory or a dream. You’re not entirely sure of the origin or the meaning. But the words haunt your mind as you step into the room, taking one sweeping glance at the gilded crowd.
Creatures of all manners cluster together in the gold-ceiling ballroom. High ceilings painted gold with images of the war look down on you. There are ornate cages of Vanir suspended in the room, all winged and painted beautifully. They pose for the crowd who look up at them, pointing at the variety: erelim, valkyrie, pixies, drakon, and other various fae.
Round tables with living centerpieces are scattered in the room. Androgynous figures painted entirely in gold stand straight, hands held up in front of them with a display of asphodel and ghost orchids. A band of vilas plays string instruments in the corner of the room.
Collared Vanir with serving trays bow and offer flutes of champagne to Jungkook and Namjoon. Both Vaesen takes a drink, ignoring you as they step into the room. You’re unsure if it’s you or Jungkook, but as you walk down the steps, careful to keep your eyes down and close behind Jungkook, you sense the turn in the room.
Voices grow quieter. The weight of eyes and shifting magic stirs. Jungkook walks into the party, shoes clicking on the marble floor as though he doesn’t notice. You know he does, but he has that calm exterior on again. The mask that he wears.
Jungkook greets people he knows politely. Namjoon has long since parted, spotting other people he knows. Other Vaesen bow deeply and their Vanir deeper still. The first few Vaesen he greets don’t ask about you, but you feel the weight of their gazes. Jungkook ignores you, not sparing you a second glance or a command as he moves around the room.
You can hear whispers as he walks by. People who mutter insults under their breaths. People sigh in delight as he walks by them. People who are inquisitive about you. Jungkook has to hear them, but he ignores them anyway, shaking hands with a member of some board that works under his family.
“My Lord, you have got quite the collared. Is she Carved?” The oni asks.
“She is. She was a gift from Kim Taehyung.”
The next hour goes like that. Vaesen fawn over you. They ask Jungkook to touch you. He lets them. Most of the touches are shy and innocent. A brush across your cheek. Hovered hands over your arms. A prod to the shoulder. It’s rude to fondle a master’s Vaesen without permission, and no one asks Jungkook for more than that.
Still, it irks you. Every brush of contact leaves a shadow of a print. Every caress chips away at your patience.
Guiding you toward a large table at the head of the room, Jungkook’s persona changes. His shoulders are less tense and you feel a bubble of happiness slide from him at the family you’re approaching.
A woman so beautiful it makes you cease moving is sitting at the table. She isn’t looking at you, but hissing at the child next to her to behave. The woman’s hair is long and black, looking soft like silk. Her round face and almond eyes give her an innocent look, a natural blush to her lips and cheeks. She is slight, but you can feel the malevolence from her, especially as she smacks the hand of the child and says something harshly to the little girl, who cries.
The woman looks up at Jungkook’s arrival, her eyes flickering different shades of blue, silver, and grey. You realize she’s a huli jing, her fox spirit crackling inside of her gaze.
Sweeping around the table and toward the pair, Jungkook greets the little girl warmly. He gives a stiff nod to the woman briefly before he bends down to talk to the little girl, wiping the tears from her eyes. You realize that the little girl looks startling like him – same round eyes and pink pout.
The man who appears on the other side of her must be Jungkook’s brother. They look incredibly similar, though Jungkook’s brother is taller and broader. His hair is also snow white. He has the same round eyes as Jungkook, which are wholly black and fathomless like Belial.
“Don’t spoil her,” he chides. “You always spoil her.”
“She’s my only niece, Jihoon. Let me do what I wish.”
Jihoon’s lip twitches as Jungkook kisses his niece – Kita – on the forehead and stands.
You stand and watch as he interacts with his family. He completely ignores you. None of them turn to look at you either, at first. It’s the little girl, who is sneaking chocolate-covered cherries when her mother isn’t looking that asks about you.
“Is that an angel?” her voice is soft, but carries.
Jihoon looks in your direction for the first time since starting the conversation. His expression is unreadable. “It is,” he says slowly. “Keen eye, Kita.  Daiyu, take your daughter to clean the chocolate from her hands.”
The fox shifter – Daiyu – snarls at her daughter. “I told you to stop eating those!”
Daiyu grabs her daughter by the hand, yanking her from the table. They get lost in the crowd, but you can see the little chocolate handprints Kita left on the white linen tablecloths.
“Why do you have a Carved?” Jihoon’s tone is even, but you can swear there is animosity as he regards you from the corner of his eye. “I don’t like Carved.”
“Taehyung bought her for me as a gift.”
“Give her to him, then. You don’t even like owning slaves.”
Jungkook sighs. “I just came to tell you happy birthday.”
Jihoon huffs. “I’m serious. Consider giving it away. Strange things happen to those who own Carved angels.”
Jungkook rolls his eyes but gives his older brother a clap on the shoulder before he steers you to a mostly empty bar in another room of the party. The sweet scent of tobacco cloys the air. Most of the Vaesen in the room sit on leather couches, feet kicked up on their Vanir who kneel for them or who have their hand wrapped in the leash of the Vanir at their side.
“Wait here,” Jungkook orders you. You’re standing next to an empty seat in the corner of the room. You bow your head to let him know you’ve heard him, but you don’t use the honorific, irritated. His jaw flexes and he heads to the bar.
You study the intricate marble of the floor beneath your feet. Little veins of black and gold shoot through the white stone. It looks like a river delta, with offshoot rivers of gold and black threading through the world.
Hair tingles on the nape of your neck and something trickle down your spine. You glance out of the corner of your eye to see Kim Taehyung enter the room with a shorter man at his side. Taehyung is dressed in all white. His white, paneled shirt is tucked into wide-leg pants of the same material. A loose-fitted suit jacket finishes the ensemble. He looks ethereal and otherworldly, a single white feather dangles in one of his ears.
Taehyung spots you, drifting toward you. Though you don’t look at him directly, you can see that something shimmers on his skin. Making him look angelic, bringing out the tawny hues of his complexion.
“I knew that dress would be perfect for you,” Taehyung purrs as a way of greeting. He smells like lavender and something darker than you can’t pinpoint. “Such a pretty little thing. I should have kept you for myself.”
“Thank you for the dress, dominus.” You make your voice robotic.
Taehyung does not introduce the man at his elbow. You can make out his image in your peripheral: dark black hair swept back off of his forehead. Dressed in all black, though his outfit is understated. Earrings glitter in his ears, and there is a glowing aura when he moves.
Kitsune.
You know it without having to look. He feels ancient and powerful, a familiar feeling.
Instead of acknowledging the Vaesen, you’re focused on keeping your breath even as Taehyung invades your space. His breath is warm and heady against your forehead. You stare at his shows as his fingers dance up your arm, brushing goosebumps into your skin until he reaches your throat, tapping on the diamond.
“He gave you his mother’s? Really?” You say nothing. Do nothing. Something greasy and ugly twists in your stomach as Taehyung lowers his voice and his head. He’s so close that you can feel the heat radiating from his skin, smell the faint lavender, and… Japanese blossom, you think. “I’m going to have to ask Jungkookie to borrow you some time. Just need a little taste.”
“I would be honored, dominus?”
“Yeah? My other Carved loves to suck cock. Think you could take me in that cute little mouth of yours? Wanna see you drooling and choking on it.”
“I would be honored, dominus.”
Taehyung grits his teeth and his fingers grip the jewel at your throat. “You are not a fucking robot. I saw you on that killing field. Where is that personality now, hmm?”
“I apologize, dominus.”
He growls and pulls at the diamond. You growl in return, the sound so brief that you hope perhaps he doesn’t hear it. He grips your throat and you know he had. “There you are. Do I have to poke and prod you to come out and play?”
“Hello, Taehyung.” Jungkook’s voice cuts through Taehyung’s timbre. You feel the most surprising emotion at his arrival – relief. Taehyung makes your skin crawl, the oil of his words slipping down into the deepest parts of you. The kitsune is at Jungkook’s back, keen eyes pinning into you. You ignore him, though you realize he had retrieved Jungkook.
“Thank you for sending the dress. I’m incredibly grateful.”
“You should take better care of it,” Taehyung greets, but doesn’t move away. His nimble fingers are wrapped around your throat. You realize that the other Vaesen has left the room. “All my hard-earned money and she doesn’t even look like you’ve used her.”
“I can use her how I want, Tae.”
“Meh,” Taehyung sighs, letting you go with a little shove. “I want to borrow her.”
“Another time.”
“Hmm. I’ll hold you to that. What did your father think of her?”
Just like that, Taehyung’s interest in you fades. You steal a glance at the kitsune, but he isn’t looking at you. He has moved away from the three of you toward the bar, uninterested in the conversation. There is nothing for you to do but stare at your shoes and burn in the growing hatred for Kim Taehyung.
If Jungkook is bothered by Taehyung’s rugged handling of you, he shows no sign. For some reason, it bothers you more. As your master, he is supposed to take more pride in owning a Carved. But so far tonight, he has shown little interest in treating you like a prize or something to be proud of.
You almost think that he’s trying to give you space and shed as little light on you as possible, which won’t do.
“You want her to fight in a Vaesen pit?” Jungkook asks, voice skeptical. That catches your attention. “Why would I send a Carved angel to that cesspool? They won’t even let her in. She’d destroy the creatures that fight there.”
“There’s an elite Vaesen pit now. They fight outside the rules of the Titan Leagues but they’re made of better shit than the Vasen pits. And they allow synth moderated creatures to fight.”
“Sounds illegal.”
“Sounds fun.”
Jungkook hums. “Let me know when you need her.” He checks his watch. “Preferably not this weekend, please.”
Taehyung laughs and claps Jungkook on the back. You go red with rage. You agreed that you served Jungkook in the public, but fighting in the seedy, unregulated rings of Vanir and Vaesen for Taehyung was not a part of that agreement.
Jungkook glances at you. Senses the ill-managed temper. He sighs and turns to Taehyung, perhaps to take back his offer to lend you. You’re unsure, and Jungkook doesn’t get the chance to say anything.
Screams interrupt the conversation. You turn to look in the direction you’re coming from. People are running and the sound of chaos and snarls comes from somewhere in the main room. You smell blood and smoke and then it hits you.
You smell the honey-scent of the seraphim.
-
D E F I N I T I O N S
Carved – angels who have had their wings surgically removed and sold for ownership. The possession of an angel’s wings gives the owner power over the angel’s grace, thereby giving them power over the angel.
Chokes – electronic cuffs with micro-needles that send signals to the nerves and nervous system to block channeling magic – most often used on glaedia
Collared – a Vanir who is owned as a slave. They are often identifiable by the custom collars their masters put on their necks.
Dominus – term used by a slave to their male identifying master
Erelim - class of angel referenced in the book of Isaiah
Endarkened - the offspring of demons and angel unions with demon-dominant blood; considered Vaesen
Enlightened - the offspring of demons and angel unions with angel-dominant blood; considered Vanir
Huli jing - Chinese fox spirit; similar to the Kitsune
Lares - spiritual guardians in Roman mythology
Lilins - the offspring of the First Demon, Lilith, an the seraphim, most notably with the angels Uriel and Raphael. They are the perfect balance of Vanir and Vaesen and were used as spies during the war.
Malakim – refers to the angels associated with Shamayim (Judaism)
Malaikah – refers to angels associated with Jannah (Islam)
Nephilim – those who are half-angel, half-human
Seraph - a single angel, one of the seraphim
Seraphim - species of angels associated with Christian heaven, soldiers of God
Triumvirate – the three Lords who rule the Realms – figures of the Underworld
Vaesen – creatures associated with Underworld Realms such as demons, daevas, sorcerers, vampires, wraiths, and monster-like creatures
Vanir – creatures associated with Heaven Realms such as angels, faeries, witches, dragons, demigods and any heavenly-like being
Yomi Worm - came from my brain but fashioned from the story of maggots growing out of Izanami's body in the underworld Yomi after she died
-
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spencers-renaissance · 3 years ago
Text
i can't forgive me & you can't forget
Summary: Spencer is happy that his boyfriend is as compassionate as he is, but watching Derek do everything he can to help Strauss with her alcoholism when he stood by and did nothing back when he was struggling with his dilaudid addiction is beginning to take its toll.
Tags: hurt!spencer, miscommunication, angst, insecurity, est. rel., hurt/comfort, cuddling & snuggling, angst w a happy ending, fluff TW: referenced past drug use, addiction, and overdose, implied/referenced alcoholism
Pairing: Derek Morgan x Spencer Reid
Word Count: 4.5k
Masterlist // Read on AO3 // The other fic in this universe
Inspired by @marisatomay’s post here!!! The title is from the second part of the poem Betrayal by Lang Leav.
It’s pushing ten pm by the time Spencer finally hears the front door open and close with a soft click, hears the rustling of Derek ditching his leather jacket on the crowded coat rack and toeing off his shoes — no doubt placing them neatly at the side of the hall like he always does — and listens to his footsteps as he nears the bedroom where Spencer’s been holed up since Derek left.
“Hey, baby boy,” Derek says with a warm, relaxed smile, his fingers already working on undoing his shirt buttons, before digging through their wardrobe to find a more comfortable top.
“Hey.”
Spencer watches him with tired eyes. He’s been feeling as hurt and despondent as he does this evening for weeks now, but tonight is the first time he doesn’t have the energy to hide it. He’s spent the entire afternoon in bed, and he’s certain it shows in the imprints of the creased pillowcase on his cheek and his messed up hair, and where just a couple of days ago he’d rush to hide those tells, he simply doesn’t care enough anymore.
Derek turns around from the wardrobe and shrugs off his shirt, replacing it with a soft blue t-shirt Spencer’s always liked on him. “Have you had anything to eat yet?”
Spencer shakes his head. Derek undoes his belt and switches his trousers for a pair of grey sweatpants before walking over to the bed and climbing onto the mattress, grinning cheekily as he rolls over Spencer’s body and leans down to press a tender kiss to the tip of his nose.
It’s sweet and romantic and so painfully normal, and maybe that’s exactly why he suddenly finds himself swallowing back tears. He’s hardly spent any time with Derek outside of work in weeks and he’s hurt and sad and struggling, and it’s only making it worse that his loving and attentive boyfriend hasn’t seemed to notice. Really, Spencer knows he needs to communicate, and that a significant part of his pain is his responsibility, but the shame—
“Well that just won’t do,” Derek murmurs, interrupting his thoughts as he brushes his fingers over a lock of curly hair resting on Spencer’s temple. “I’ll go and make you something. Or we can order in? What do you fancy?”
Spencer shrugs, looking away. He’s not trying to be difficult, it’s just incredibly hard to think about food and a relaxing night in with your partner when you feel like your insides are splintering and you’re just barely holding yourself together.
Even without looking directly at his face, Spencer can see Derek’s brow furrow and his happy expression fade, and soon enough Derek’s fingers are at his chin, gently moving his head until he’s looking at him again. “Hey, pretty boy,” he says gently, looking so concerned it makes his chest ache, “what’s wrong? Tell me what’s going on in that big old head of yours.”
So much of him wants to give in and tell him everything, wants to spill his fears and his anxieties and his anger and his shame onto the sheets of their bed and lay it all out for him. He wants to shout, “See? This is who I am! This is all my mess and my pain and my regret! Look at it!”
But he can’t. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before opening them again to meet the swirling worry in Derek’s deep, beautiful brown eyes and he wills himself not to cry. “Nothing,” he lies. “I’m just tired. Hungry.”
He knows Derek doesn’t believe him, but there isn’t much he can do if Spencer isn’t willing to communicate, so he nods reluctantly and leans down to place a kiss on his forehead this time, lingering there for a moment longer than he usually does. The feeling of his boyfriend hovering over him and asking him what’s wrong and kissing him so tenderly is all Spencer’s craved for weeks, but now it’s here, he still feels sad and empty and hollowed out by shame and bitterness, desperate for something more without so much as an idea as to what exactly more might entail.
“I tell you what, I’ll go make you some tortellini, alright? There’s a pack in the fridge and it only takes a couple of minutes so I’ll be back before you know it,” Derek promises, and Spencer can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Regardless, Derek hops off the bed and heads out to the kitchen, leaving Spencer alone in the softly lit bedroom. He pulls the duvet further up to his chin and buries his face in it, the soft fabric gentle on his skin, and the comforting scent of Spencer’s shampoo mingling with Derek’s cologne settling him slightly.
Derek had spent the afternoon with Strauss at the rehab centre. And not for the first time.
The problem is, how can Spencer be mad at him for that? Really, it’s the epitome of his character: genuine, constant, unconditional compassion for everyone around him, no matter who they are or what his history with them might be. Of course he’d see Strauss struggling with her addiction and swoop right in, getting her settled in at the centre and spending hours with her on visiting days, fighting alongside Hotch to persuade the director to let her keep her job.
But watching him leave every week, watching him text her encouraging messages, hearing him talk about her progress and recovery… it strikes a nerve deep inside Spencer. He isn’t proud of how he feels. He knows it’s petty and illogical, but he can’t help it.
Because somewhere deep in his soul, an old version of himself, a sad, lonely, scared, addicted-to-dilaudid boy is crying out, why didn’t you do that for me?
It’s that question that really plagues him. They’re called into work the next day for a fairly interesting case in North Dakota, and there are some fairly strong links to the world of academia, so usually, Spencer would be all over it, reeling off facts and statistics and reaching out to his contacts to further the case. But for some reason, he just can’t get his head in the game.
He finds himself zoning out on the jet and wandering off at crime scenes without even knowing where he’s going. Initially, his team had assumed that he was thinking, or was going somewhere deliberately that might help them with the case, they’d all counted on Doctor Reid to come up with some brilliant theory to bring them closer to catching their unsub.
But Hotch had quickly realised that his head was somewhere else and kept him close to his side from then on. At least staying at the police station with Hotch and being tasked with reading through the unsub’s literary work and constructing a geographical profile both gives him something specific to focus on, and — as much as Spencer hates to admit it — keeps him away from Derek.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Hotch asks gently when they both find themselves at the coffee pot in the late afternoon. He doesn’t look over at him, his eyes focused on the stream of coffee and creamer headed straight for his mug. Spencer knows it’s a tactic to make him feel less ambushed and more relaxed, but that doesn’t stop it from working.
“No,” he says honestly.
Hotch nods in acceptance. He puts a warm hand on his shoulder and squeezes briefly. “Well, you know where I am if you change your mind.”
Both JJ and Emily eye him suspiciously throughout the case as well, but no one is more confused and concerned than Derek. Spencer tries not to think about the irony.
“Baby, what’s got you all distracted like this?” Derek asks softly when they’re finally alone in their room that night, full up from the rushed dinner they’d all had in the lobby before crawling to their rooms for a couple of hours’ sleep before the manhunt continues in the morning. “This is so unlike you and you know it.”
Spencer doesn’t reply, just continues quietly changing into his pajamas before brushing his teeth and washing his face. Derek’s still sitting in the same position when he comes out, looking frustrated and contemplative, and Spencer feels guilty for making him feel this way, but he just doesn’t know what to do. He can’t act like everything's okay because it isn’t, and he’s tired himself out from pretending that it was for weeks, now. But he can’t tell him what’s going on either.
The thing is, how is Spencer supposed to admit that he’s still hurt over something that happened almost five years ago now? And how is he supposed to admit that Derek doing the right thing is only reopening wounds he’d tried so hard to heal and close? That both Derek and Hotch had specifically helped him heal and close?
He doesn’t know how to verbalise his feelings without sounding petulant or pathetic, so he doesn’t. He keeps them buried deep inside him and hopes desperately that no one comes digging.
“I’m fine, Derek,” he lies again, leaning down to kiss him gently before rounding the bed and crawling under the covers. “Just having an off day, I guess.”
Derek sighs but doesn’t push any further, clearly knowing a lost cause when he sees one. Instead, he follows in Spencer’s footsteps and gets ready for bed silently, whispering a quiet good night before switching off the lamp and climbing into bed on the other side.
It feels like the expanse of white sheet between them goes on for miles.
It’s the first time Spencer’s regretted Hotch’s decision to continue letting them share a room.
The question continues to plague him over the next week. He gets marginally better at pretending he’s not falling apart at the seams, and it’s enough to make almost everyone back off, but Hotch is still concerned and Derek is still confused, and he can feel himself drifting further away from the team each day, as though his rope tying him to the others has been cut, and now the current is having its way with him.
Nothing much changes. He continues in his hurt and lonely quietude, and Derek continues to ask what’s wrong, sighing sadly when he gets nothing out of him, and they exist in tandem.
It had always felt — ever since the beginning of their relationship — as though their relationship was a salsa dance. They were tangled in one another’s lives, both physically and emotionally, and they existed in this relaxed kind of ease that Spencer’s only ever seen before in long-term relationships. They’d fallen into a lucky, easy kind of love, and it was never as much work as everyone had promised him a relationship would be.
They’ve been together for four years, and their worst fight was over whether the cheese grater went in the cupboard next to the sink or above it. (Granted, it had spiraled into some other disagreements that came along with cohabitation, but. Still.)
Spencer knows he’s introducing a dynamic they’re unused to, and he hates it. Guilt plagues him, mingling with his shame and sadness until he’s drowning under the weight of it, no way to claw himself to the surface to take a breath.
They exist on parallel lines: next to one another; yet never crossing over. Their relationship is no longer a salsa dance.
The next off-day they have, Derek can’t get out the door fast enough. “I’m off to visit Erin,” he tells Spencer, and it still makes him irrationally angry that he’s stopped calling her Strauss and now refers to her like a friend.
Is it better that Strauss is now Derek’s friend? Him helping someone he actually cares about makes him not caring about Spencer all those years again slightly less of a gut-punch, he supposes. But the fact that Derek and Strauss of all people are becoming closer while he and Spencer drift apart hurts in a way he can’t even begin to explain.
This time, he spends the entire day crying. Every time the tears slow down and he catches his breath, another wave of grief and pain and anxiety and shame and jealousy crashes over him, and all of a sudden he can’t breathe again. It’s an exhausting cycle, and by the early afternoon his stomach muscles are aching and his ribs feel bruised.
It’s also the first day he gets a craving.
He’s an addict, right, he’s had periods of intermittent cravings over the years, that’s completely normal. Sometimes, even thinking about it in passing is enough for the itch to come back, to whisper the number of his old dealer in his ear, to recall in both his physical and mental memory the feeling that came with each press of the syringe.
This is the most intense one since his withdrawal immediately after waking up in hospital following his accidental overdose in his parking garage. It’s so intense that it scares him.
Crying harder than he thought it possible, he fumbles for his phone on the nightstand and — fighting the temptation to type in the digits of his dealer — he dials the number he’s had memorised since he was nineteen. He can’t speak through his gut-wrenching sobs, but he knows the sound of him crying this hard will be enough, so he lies in bed and continues his pity party until he hears the front door swing open and the rapid steps through the hall.
Soon enough, Hotch is pulling him into his arms and he finally feels a little less alone.
Hotch lets him cry himself out, and only when his tears have dried up and the hiccups have subsided does he say anything besides the reassuring murmurs he’d spoken into Spencer’s ears as he cried.
“Spencer,” he says — somewhat desperately — “please. You have to tell me what’s going on. Let me help you, okay? Whatever it is, I’m here. I won’t let you suffer on your own anymore, I promise.”
Spencer doesn’t raise his head from its position buried in Hotch’s t-shirt, but he does finally say something. He doesn’t know what overrides the shame that’s kept him quiet — maybe it’s the exhaustion or the loneliness finally winning out — but whatever it is, he’s glad it does.
“I had a craving today,” he whispers, because it seems like a good place to start. “Haven’t been feeling good since, uh. Since… Strauss.”
It’s hopelessly phrased, but it’s the best way he can explain it and Hotch, being the miracle profiler and father figure of Spencer Reid, figures it out instantly.
He feels the way he slumps slightly, hears the tired, frustrated sigh, and knows he’s probably beating himself up for not figuring it out sooner.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I just… I couldn’t. I didn’t know how.”
Hotch shushes him. “You don’t need to apologise for that, Spencer, don’t be sorry. I’m the one who should be sorry for being so blind, and I am. I hate that you’ve been suffering like this and we’ve all been too stupid to realise why.”
“It still, it still hurts,” he says quietly, sadly, regretfully, “it still hurts that no one helped me until it was almost too late. But everyone dropped everything to help Strauss— I’m sorry, it’s so selfish, I shouldn’t be—”
“Hey, Spence,” Hotch interrupts him, caressing his arm gently. “It isn’t selfish. It’s human. And you’re right, we should have helped you sooner and it’s always been my greatest regret that we didn’t, and that because of that dereliction of duty, we almost lost you.”
“I’m not, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty or anything—”
“Spencer, I know that. But you need to stop feeling guilty for how you feel, alright? It makes complete sense that this is bringing up both the feelings of rejection and betrayal, and also cravings for the drug you were addicted to at the time. It’s so obvious that I don’t know how I didn’t see it earlier.”
Spencer nods, but he doesn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. “Derek’s been visiting Strauss on our days off,” he admits quietly. “I’ve barely seen him for almost a month now, and that— it isn’t helping.”
“I can understand that. Have you talked to him about any of this?” he asks, even though Spencer’s sure Hotch already knows the answer.
He shakes his head.
“I know it’s hard, Spence, I really do, but I think you need to talk to him. Obviously, it would’ve been better if both he and I had figured it out without you having to tell us, but clearly, he isn’t going to realise by himself. I know that as soon as you explain it, he’ll understand completely.”
Spencer sighs. Some part of him had known this was coming, he just didn’t know how it would come about. He wouldn’t have put money on Hotch being involved, but maybe he should have done. He always seems to come to Spencer’s rescue.
“He’ll probably be out for a while. He usually stays out for hours when he goes to visit her.”
“Well, how about I stay until he comes home, and then you can talk to him? How does that sound?”
Spencer looks up at him. “What about Jack?”
“He’s out with a friend and their family anyway,” Hotch reassures him, smiling as he runs a hand down his arm. “Now how about I make you some tea and we go and sit on the sofa?”
Spencer reluctantly agrees and moves from the safety of his bed to the comfort of his sofa, but he has to admit that the light streaming in from the big bay window and the feeling of sitting up makes him feel just a little better straight away. Once Hotch is back and placing a cup of chamomile tea into his hands, he doesn’t feel quite so much like he’s going to burst into tears at any moment.
“I have to ask, Spencer,” Hotch says carefully, “did you buy any dilaudid? Or attempt to contact your dealer?”
“Thought about it,” he admits, not meeting Hotch’s concerned eyes, “but I didn’t.”
Hotch relaxes. “Good. I’m proud of you, you know.”
Spencer looks at him with a hesitant smile that only grows when Hotch beams back.
They spend the afternoon watching nature documentaries — and Spencer admittedly dozes through a lot of them, exhausted from the burden of carrying so much pain around and the physical exertion of crying so hard — until Derek comes home at just gone five thirty.
“Hotch?” he asks, confused, and his voice wakes Spencer up from one of his unintentional naps.
He scrambles to sit upright, going inexplicably red at the thought of what he knows is coming. For some reason, he feels like he’s done something wrong and he’s about to be told off. He hates that this is what his relationship with Derek has come to.
“Hi, Derek,” Hotch says, squeezing Spencer’s ankle and getting up from the sofa. “Spencer asked me to come over earlier” — which is a bit of a stretch when really Spencer sobbed into the phone until Hotch showed up — “and I was just keeping him company until you came home.”
Derek’s eyebrows only furrow further, looking between them, confused. “Right.”
“Spencer,” Hotch says, meeting his eyes, “are you okay if I go now? You’ll tell Derek what we talked about?”
Immediately, Spencer blushes red as Derek’s scrutinising eyes fixate on him, but he nods and smiles weakly at Hotch, following him with his eyes as he lets himself out, if just to avoid meeting Derek’s.
“Pretty boy?” Derek says cautiously, slowly taking off his jacket and approaching the sofa like Spencer’s a wild animal liable to be spooked away at any given moment. He supposes it’s probably quite a good analogy, actually.
Spencer shifts nervously in his seat, moving his legs out of the way to give Derek more room to sit down on the sofa.
“You finally gonna tell me what’s been up with you these last few weeks?” Derek asks, and Spencer isn’t oblivious to the hope in his voice. “I’ve been worried about you, baby.”
Spencer nods and closes his eyes for a moment, taking a couple of deep breaths to compose himself. He’s told one person, and it went fine— it went well, actually. Derek is his life partner, his soulmate, and they tell each other everything. He just needs to start at the beginning. He needs to tell him all of the disclaimers, remind him that he’s not angry at him for doing the right thing or for being the compassionate person he is, he just needs to— He needs to focus, and he needs to tell the truth.
“I called Hotch earlier because I was scared of myself,” he says, finally opening his eyes and looking into Derek’s. “I was having some of the most intense cravings I’ve had since being sober, and I was seriously considering calling my dealer, but I managed to call Hotch instead, and we talked about how I’ve been feeling.”
“Baby, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,” Derek says regretfully, his face melting into the very picture of apologetic as he scoots a bit closer on the sofa so he can grab Spencer’s legs and pull them over his lap.
“I know,” Spencer replies, ignoring for now that him not being here is why they have a problem in the first place. He moves on. “I’ve been… struggling… over the last month or so with feelings that I haven’t really known how to rationalise or explain, and when I finally did make sense of them, I felt that I couldn’t share them with anyone, which is why I’ve been so distant and private. And I’m sorry for that, by the way.”
Derek just smiles, caressing his bare ankle with one hand as he rests his other over his shin.
He pauses for a moment, trying to find the best way to word his thoughts, but before he can think about it too hard, the words come spilling out, unbidden. “I’ve found it hard to reconcile your attentiveness and willingness to throw everything at helping Strauss, and the way no-one helped me with my addiction back in 2007.”
Derek’s face instantly falls, and saying the words out loud brings all the emotions he’d managed to control back again in full force, and suddenly his face is crumpling, too. Derek surges forward, moving them both until he’s situated between the sofa cushions and Spencer, cuddling him as close as he can while Spencer cries into his chest.
“I’m so sorry, baby, I’m so sorry,” he whispers, voice breaking as he begins to cry as well. “I’m sorry I didn’t do anything then and I’m sorry I didn’t put two and two together to realise why you were struggling so much. I can’t believe I was so oblivious, Spence, oh God.”
They lie there for a long time, crying together as Derek runs his hands through Spencer’s hair and Spencer clings desperately to the fabric of Derek’s t-shirt.
“I was just feeling so distant from you because we weren’t spending as much time together, and I had no idea how to admit that I was feeling hurt about something that happened almost five years ago,” he continues when they’ve both calmed down again, and they’re ready to resume the conversation. “I guess I just felt… ashamed of both my feelings now and being jealous, which is so ridiculous, I had no idea how to tell anyone how I was feeling. And I’m so sorry that my lack of communication affected us so much.”
“Oh, baby,” Derek sighs, leaning in to press a kiss to Spencer’s lips. “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m sorry that I was hurting you when I should’ve known the effect my actions would have. This whole mess is on me for so many reasons.”
“Der, I don’t want you to feel guilty,” Spencer says insistently, urgently, looking at him imploringly. “You’ve apologised enough for what happened back then, and there’s no way we can change what happened. You were just being the same kind and compassionate person you always are when you were helping Strauss.” He reaches out and cups Derek’s face gently, hating the tells of guilt and self-loathing he can see all over it.
Derek sighs and moves Spencer’s hand to his lips so he can kiss his palm. “When I was sitting in that hospital room waiting for you to wake up,” he explains, “I made a promise to myself. I told myself that I would never let anyone down like that again. I was never going to stand back and watch anyone else I knew fall into the same trap you did. So when I realised Strauss had a drinking problem, all I saw was an opportunity to keep that promise.
“The only problem was that I was so wrapped up in doing the right thing in helping her that I wasn’t doing the right thing by you. I should’ve realised all the feelings, physical and emotional, that this would bring up for you, but I didn’t think. I’m so sorry, baby boy, I really am.”
Spencer cuddles back into Derek, burying his face in the juncture between his neck and shoulder and relaxing into the reassuring scent of his person. “I know, Der. I forgive you.”
“How about we order in some Thai for dinner from your favourite restaurant and watch some Doctor Who?” Derek suggests after a couple of minutes of silence. “I think we’re long overdue for some quality time together.”
Spencer smiles at him, feeling so much of the heaviness that’s been weighing him down over the last few weeks lift that he feels almost like he’s floating. “I think that sounds like a plan.”
They set the living room up to be as cosy as possible, lighting the candles Penelope had made for them and using only their soft lamps to light the room, before piling the couch high with blankets and pillows until they’re cuddled together in a little nest.
The evening is spent eating their favourite food and watching their favourite season of Doctor Who, and while Spencer’s still hurting and they still have healing to do, this feels like a damn good start.
“I’m proud of you,” Spencer whispers to Derek late into the night, when they’re close to falling asleep in the comfort of their blanket pile.
Derek turns to him, looking confused. “What do you mean?”
“You made a mistake when you let things get bad with my addiction back in 2007,” Spencer explains, “and when you saw someone headed down the same path, you stopped at nothing to make sure you didn’t make that mistake again. If anything shows me how much you regret not doing anything sooner, it’s your devotion to Strauss’ recovery.”
Derek smiles at him, his eyes a little watery, and holds his chin gently as he leans in to kiss him. “I love you,” he murmurs. “I love you so much.”
Spencer kisses him again before cuddling back into his side. “I know you do, Derek. And I love you, too.”
And really, when it comes down to it, that’s enough.
Ahhh, this was the first fic in forever that actually felt fairly easy to write thank GOD. I loved this concept and writing that good, good angst was so much fun. Plus, we always love a happy ending in this house! Also, a reminder that how other people when you confront them with the way they hurt you or made you feel is not your responsibility.
taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @lesbiantodds @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @negativefouriq @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @livrere-blue @hotchseyebrows @enbyspencer @reidology @transhanniballecter @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @hotchedyke @tobias-hankel @hotchscotchh @marsjareau @oliverbrnch @im-autistic @anxious-enby @kuolonsyoja @reidreids @ropoto @thosecriminalminds @wifeyprentiss @cmily @love-pyramus @notevanbuckley @thebipolarbisexualnerd (add yourself to my taglist here!)
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thornedrose44 · 4 years ago
Note
Supercorp prompt-
Lena takes an art class to de-stress and Kara is the nude model. Awkward semi- naked flirting ensues.
(A/N: So, I put my own twist on this (hope that’s okay), I made Lena a teacher just because I liked the idea of Lena having to keep her lack of chill under control and be professional in front of a class funny - though this fic went down just a really light, fluffy route which I hadn’t expected when I started it.)
Read on AO3
It had been going well, the first term had passed with only a few missteps and one trip to the emergency room - though, the Dean had told her that Zach had yet to make it through a single class without some sort of accident and had been preemptively banned from taking Chemistry classes for fear of taking out an entire graduation class. 
Lena had never expected to return to her alma mater as a lecturer but the stars had aligned at just the right time. The youngest Luthor had reached a stage in her career where she had finally proven her adoptive mother wrong about not finding success as an artist and had made enough money that she need never paint another picture in her life again. The lack of necessity and the return to a more Luthor-esque lifestyle - galas, fancy balls and paid talks - had subsequently impacted her inspiration. She needed a change. A return to her roots and some sort of stability without losing her ability to make a personal impact with her work. 
Her mentor - J’onn - was stepping down from the art department and had recommended her as his replacement; National City University had jumped at the chance of the world renowned Lena Luthor taking up a teaching position there. 
She was now a third of the way through the school year, settled comfortably into her new role, and absolutely loving it. Her spark was back, and she was enjoying being in one place surrounded by her old friends. She was reconnecting with skills and techniques she hadn’t touched in years whilst simultaneously giving advice and encouragement to students that reminded her of herself when Lillian had cut her off to force her into attending business school and abandoning her dreams. She was finally able to return the kindness J’onn had given her all those years ago to the next generation of artists. 
It was the second term that Lena experienced her first set of real nerves. 
Lena had an artistic weak spot, an achilles heel that she had been able to keep out of her signature artistic style but she would now be forced to confront. 
Life drawing.
It had been her lowest scoring class by a mile and she had avoided the advanced elective classes like the plague. Lena knew practice made perfect but she’d never had enough interest to develop her skills. Her interest had always lied more in natural landscape beauty - J’onn had said her true inspiration lied with trying to recreate her childhood memories of Ireland: emerald rolling hills, rocky cliffs, dense forests ensconced by a mystical fog that lended her artwork a fantastical element that she was now known for.
The problem lied in Lena’s lack of interest in people. 
She had never really seen the ‘art’ in them.
Kelly, Sam and Andrea had spent hours over evening drinks psycho-analysing just why that might be, their two favourite theories were Lena’s family (the loss of her mother and the general unpleasantness of the Luthors) or Lena’s truly terrible dating history (their favourite topic of conversation due to the sheer number of embarrassing stories it elicited).
Lena refused to acknowledge the accuracy of both theories. 
It was therefore with a sense of dread that Lena prepared for the first Life Model Drawing class that Tuesday afternoon. The one small silver lining was that she didn’t need to arrange a model - she had vague memories of J’onn trying to entice volunteers and grumbling under his breath about some of the less than pleasant eager volunteers. J’onn had a list of regular volunteers that he had accrued over the years that were reliable and just liked to help out - most of them older with an appreciation for the arts and more time on their hands than they knew what to do with. The University admin team had organised everything and simply told her to expect a Kara Danvers at the studio some time before the class.
Lena had finished prepping the studio well in advance, reviewed the relevant techniques for most of the morning and even phoned J’onn for a much needed pep talk over lunch. She had just convinced herself that everything might be okay, that she just might be able to do this, when the most beautiful woman Lena had ever laid eyes on burst into the studio.
A toned body that glinted with a light sheen of sweat barely covered by a white v-neck tucked in at the front of a pair of dark jeans that merely brought all of Lena’s attention to the bronze belt buckle that locked away a thousand dirty thoughts. Glorious golden ringlet curls bounced up and down as the woman stumbled to a sudden stop as the most piercing blue eyes imaginable behind thick glasses locked with Lena’s green ones.
“Hi, I’m Kara!” The goddess announced, swallowing thickly and stumbling forward in her hefty black boots as she extended out a hand for Lena to take.
Lena only reached out due to years of Luthor training that had ingrained politeness into her muscle memory - her brain still not firing on all cylinders at the sight of the woman in front of her. Kara’s warm palm connected with Lena’s, long fingers curling gently yet firmly around the edge of her hand and sending arcs of lightning through Lena’s body and causing her breath to stutter. 
“I hope you haven’t been waiting for me for too long.” Kara continued, a bright apologetic smile lighting up her entire face and grinding whatever gears were still turning Lena’s mind to a dead - permanent - halt. “I try to always get here early to help set-up but the interview I was conducting overran - I’m a journalist, by the way - and then my bike - motorbike that is -” Lena’s mind caught on the motorbike and turned it round over and over and over again, “didn’t start and… I’m rambling. Oh, golly! I mean heck, I mean sorry.” Kara huffed, cheeks filling with air before releasing into an adorable pout. “Sorry.”
It was then that Lena realised two things.
One, it was her turn to say something and there had now been at least ten  prolonged seconds of silence as they stared into each other’s eyes.
And two, they were still holding hands because that’s what it was now, it most definitely could not be considered a handshake.
“Umm… hi…” Lena choked out whilst simultaneously jerking her hand back to her side, hoping the somewhat stifling heat of the studio would hide the red blush perfusing her cheeks.  “Lena. I’m Lena, that is…”
“Hi.” Kara murmured, smiling soft and sweet at her causing Lena’s heart to flip and melt and dance and do a million impossible things all at once.
“Hi.” Lena repeated dumbly - so dumbly.
“I should…” Kara chuckled, hands miming grabbing the edge of her t-shirt and lifting it up, “You know?”
Oh, god the goddess is going to undress, Lena’s brain screamed in gay at herself.
“Yeah, definitely do that.” Lena encouraged with a flap of her hand towards the centre of the studio where a solitary illuminated stool awaited. “Do you need anything? Is the lighting okay? Stool… umm… sturdy?”
Kara grinned at her, blue eyes barely sparing a glance at the studio’s set-up, “Looks perfect.”
“Great.” Lena cheered, jerking her thumb over at her desk in the corner where she had prepped her teaching materials, “I’ll… uh… be over there.”
“And I’ll be right here.” Kara shot back with a cheeky wink as she walked over to the stool, a towel awaiting her to provide suitable covering until the class had settled, shucking her white shirt over her head and revealing back muscles that would star in Lena’s fantasies for the foreseeable future.
“Yep.” Lena popped, taking a deep breath and trying to work out if she should be murmuring a thank you to God or screaming a desperate why me.
***
The class had gone well - except for the long periods where her brain shutdown whenever she studied the play of shadows across Kara’s defined musculature. She managed to cover it quite well by making it seem like she was just assessing her students’ work closely, analysing their line work and shading rather than going through an extended gay crisis that eclipsed seeing boobs for the first time in college.
Kara, on the other hand, was a consummate professional, holding a steady pose throughout and utterly unfazed by the concentrated gazes on her - though, Lena could have sworn that she caught deep blue eyes tracking her movements round the half-circle every now and again. 
“So, you’re experienced doing this?” Lena asked, once the last student had departed and Kara was finishing re-tying her sturdy boots back up.
“Taking my clothes off?” Kara chuckled, shooting the teacher an amused smirk, getting to her feet and strolling easily over to where Lena was examining the product of her class’ efforts. 
Lena faltered, “I meant-”
“I’m just teasing.” Kara reassured, reaching out to squeeze Lena’s forearm in a half-apology that Lena could have sworn burnt Kara’s hand print into her skin, “I’ve done this for a while now. I did an interview with J’onn a few years ago and his model bailed at the last minute and I was here already and…” Kara shrugged casually like stepping in was the obvious thing to do, like kindness was the only option - which Lena didn’t doubt for a second was something Kara genuinely believed. “I like helping out where I can. And I just kept coming back…” Kara explained, clasping her hands behind her back as she took a tentative step closer to Lena, “I was never really sure why until-”
“Hey, babe, you ready to go?” 
Lena’s head snapped round to see Andrea strolling through the doorway, eyes fixed on her phone utterly oblivious to the moment she had just trampled all over. Lena wasn’t sure whether Andrea was naturally such a good cockblock or if she practiced at it - regardless of either option Lena’s sexlife had vanished into thin air since she’d returned to living in the same city as Andrea. (Not that Lena thought that her and Kara were heading that way but Lena had been enjoying the hope of it at least).
“Andrea, you’re early for the first time in.... well, ever…” Lena snarked, rolling her eyes before glancing over to Kara, only to find the blonde had taken a large step away from her and her expression was far more neutral and guarded than it had been only moments before.
“Wait, we weren’t meeting at 4?” Andrea frowned, still not bothering to look up.
“Ah, so you’re not early, you’re over an hour late.” Lena remarked.
“God, you’re such a drama queen…” Andrea sighed, finally lifting her gaze from her phone, her eyes immediately alighting on Kara with undisguised interest. “And who is this?”
“Andrea, this is Kara the model for our life drawing classes.” Lena introduced taking a protective step in front of the blonde, an action that did not go unnoticed by the other two occupants in the room. “Kara, this is my supposed best friend who is regularly trying to lose that title.”
“Oh, best friend?” Kara repeated; the familiar brightness from before returning to her expression as she looked excitedly between the two friends.
“Yes.” Lena answered, smiling shyly at Kara and immediately forgetting Andrea’s existence, let alone presence in the room.
“That’s great.” Kara grinned, blushing a light pink a second later as her hands fidgeted with her keys, “I mean… ummm…. That you have a best friend. My sister is my best friend, though I have other friends. I just mean that… friends are cool.” 
Lena laughed lightly at Kara’s ramble, leaning closer towards the blonde without realising until Andrea appeared at her shoulder looking far too pleased with herself.
“Kara,” Andrea greeted, holding out a hand for the blonde to shake (Lena was comforted to see their handshake was quick, almost professional in comparison to the lingering touch Kara and Lena had shared earlier). “The pleasure is all mine.” Andrea declared, winking surreptitiously at the teacher - Lena instantly dreaded the upcoming girl’s night.
“Nice to meet you.” Kara replied friendly and sincere, before smiling softly at Lena and muttering a hopeful, “I’ll see you next week?” 
“I’ll be here.” Lena reassured, watching as Kara nodded farewell to Andrea and departed, waving on her way out.
“Well…” Andrea murmured mischievously.
“Don’t.” Lena said sharply, holding up a finger to deter whatever torment Andrea had brewing. “Not a word. Not a single word.”
“Ooookay.” Andrea lied.
***
“You okay?” Lena asked tentatively, watching as Kara sluggishly slung her bag over her shoulder the pep to her step nowhere near as present as it had been last week. 
They hadn’t had a chance to talk before the class even though Kara arrived much earlier to help set-up - Lena had been helping a student struggling with deadlines and a sudden crisis of confidence which prevented them from interacting. Despite being occupied, Lena had seen the fatigue weighing heavily on the reporter, saw how her impeccable posture dropped and how her students added weary lines to her expression in their artwork. 
“I think you fell asleep on that stool for ten minutes at some point.” Lena murmured, brow creasing in concern.
“Pfft… what?” Kara reassured with a light-hearted wave of her hand. “Impossible.”
Lena arched an unimpressed eyebrow, “You snore. Quite loudly.”
“Oh…” Kara pouted guiltily, rubbing at the back of her neck, “My sister is going through a rough patch and I stayed up late with her last night.”
Lena’s amusement drained away to be replaced with soft, supportive care, “Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s doing better.” Kara replied, blue eyes twinkling at Lena’s inquiry that had them both ducking their heads coyly and sharing furtive glances. “I should get going.” Kara coughed out, though she made no move to leave.
“Or…” Lena began hesitantly, heart fluttering in her chest, “we could go for coffee? You should probably have a coffee before driving,” Lena rationalised, nervously stepping back from the blatant romantic line she was toeing, “you know for safety…”
“For safety.” Kara repeated carefully, blue eyes glowing with warmth, “That sounds wonderful.”
***
It didn’t take them long at all to settle into a comfortable routine.
Kara came early to the life model classes, helping set-up the room as they talked about the students' progress and what Lena was going to make the focus of the class. During the class itself, Lena no longer needed to flit as regularly between her students, they had learned the basic techniques enough to practise for themselves, now only requiring light guidance which allowed Lena time to either do some marking or her own art. Kara posed perfectly throughout, though Lena was becoming more and more aware of Kara’s still gaze on her as the weeks passed by. 
After class, it was now custom for them to grab a coffee and go for a long walk around the university campus as they talked about everything and nothing. They would have been building towards a strong friendship if it wasn’t for the lingering touches, blatant flirts, blushes and wandering gazes. 
Lena wasn’t overly sure why they hadn’t crossed that line, made that final move, but she found she didn’t particularly mind the wait. She was convinced that they had both decided that the journey was making the destination all the more desirable.
It became abundantly apparent, though, that Kara thought differently if their conversation after the class midway through the term was anything to go by.
“So do you not like my body?” Kara asked, quick and fearful, eyes looking down at the sketch Lena had done during class of a vase of flowers in the corner rather than of the readily available model.
“What?” Lena muttered in disbelief looking up sharply from her desk to see Kara paling considerably having clearly not intended to ask the question that she had blurted out.
“I… uh…” Kara squeaked, mouth opening and closing rapidly, before lifting her bare wrist up with a jerky motion and whistling in exaggerated surprise, “Wow, look at the time. I’m late for… uh… this thing. Work thing. Interview! That’s a work thing.”
And just like that she was gone - Lena wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a Kara shaped hole in the studio wall with how fast she disappeared - leaving Lena with a sinking, twisty feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her she might have lost more than her regular coffee with Kara over that one interaction.
***
Lena had Kara’s phone number and they had taken to texting throughout the day; however, since Kara’s panicked question - which probably revealed some deep vulnerability in the blonde - there had been complete and total radio silence. No memes, no cute animal pics, no sweet check ins… Lena’s phone remained silent when it once vibrated with life. 
Lena wanted to text or call Kara the second she had left the studio but Lena didn’t feel like this was a conversation they could have over text, so she waited impatiently for them to be face to face again, counting down the days until the next class. 
Lena even took to repeatedly checking in with the admin office to confirm that Kara hadn’t pulled out of modelling; reaching the stage where Jess, the most senior admin in the team, had taken to emailing her every couple of hours to reassure her that Kara still hadn’t cancelled. 
When Kara appeared, nervously stepping into the art room, fingers playing with the hem of her shirt, it was like Lena could finally breathe easy again. The fear and loss eeking away in an instant, giving Lena the necessary courage to stride forward and bare herself in a way that Kara had been doing every week without Lena fully realising.  
“I don’t like drawing people.” Lena announced, shoving her hands into her pockets to resist the temptation to reach out to the other woman as the blonde blinked at her in surprise, listening intently. “It’s kind of a thing with me.” Lena winced, pushing down all the reasons for why that is. “When I draw something I… kind of let whatever it is into me, let it consume me and it… stays with me for a long time after that. It’s why I draw what I draw. I draw my home because it's a part of me already. Drawing someone means carrying them with me and… that’s scary for me.” Lena breathed, glancing at the blonde to see soft understanding in blue eyes. “I just wanted you to know it’s not you.”
Kara nodded, shuffling closer and dipping her head so that she could whisper into the still space between them, “Thank you.” 
“Right,” Lena murmured, swallowing thickly before jerking a thumb over her shoulder, “I should-”
“Do you want to get dinner?” Kara inquired earnestly causing Lena to freeze in hopeful surprise. “After class, that is?”
“Um… Yes.” Lena replied, nodding her head eagerly.
“Awesome.” Kara grinned brightly.
***
Kara took her to a tucked away italian restaurant that was one of National City’s hidden gems. The food was outstanding and the company was even better.
It wasn’t a date, but it wasn’t just friends going out for dinner either. 
Lena would call it a test-run but that would imply that Lena wasn't already one hundred percent certain that she wanted an actual date with Kara. It was more of a date-appetiser if Lena was going to call it anything, a taste to build interest before the real thing. 
Once they had finished their food, Kara didn’t hesitate to interlace their fingers as they went for an evening stroll around a nearby park, both wishing to prolong their time together.
“Can I see your art?” Kara requested; they had been sitting on a bench in front of a lit-up fountain for the last twenty minutes or so in comfortable silence. Lena had expressed an interest in sketching the fountain and Kara hadn’t hesitated to find them a seat and encourage Lena’s desire without complaint, occupying herself with people-watching in the meantime. 
“I’m pretty sure the images are all over the internet.” Lena replied drolly.
“Yeah, I know it’s just…” Lena’s pencil froze in it’s movements finally noticing how hard Kara was trying to act casual, “what you said about it being a part of you, I thought-”
“You want me to show it to you…” Lena inferred, setting her pencil down and closing her handy sketchbook in an instant. 
“It’s stupid, I’ll-” Kara laughed awkwardly, shaking her head in an attempt to brush over the request like it wasn’t a big deal
“I don’t have many pieces here in National City,” Lena said thoughtfully, getting to her feet and holding out a hand for Kara, “but I have some works in progress that I can show you… if you want that is?”  
“I would love that.” Kara beamed, jumping to her feet as Lena tugged her back towards her campus studio, already picking out her favourite pieces in her mind that she wanted to share with the blonde.
***
Lena and Kara’s ‘friendship’ continued to blossom into something neither could have anticipated that day Kara sprinted into the studio all those weeks ago. The weekly class they shared was now always followed by dinner, taking it in turns to share their favourite cuisines and restaurants. They had also grown beyond only seeing each other on their allotted class day, sharing lunches and movie nights and spontaneous coffees as they learned each other's schedule and needs. 
Lena read all of Kara’s articles and spent many an evening asking countless questions about the background to each of them. Likewise, Kara would appear for coffee with one of Lena’s artworks saved in her phone, burning with curiosity about what had inspired it.
Time spent with Kara flew by and, before Lena knew it, it was the final class prior to spring break. Her last class with Kara until the next school year and Lena was finally ready.
She had finally figured it out.
Why she had waited.
Why she had yet to seize the numerous opportunities to transition her relationship with Kara into a romantic one.
It was because she knew. 
She knew from the second that she had taken Kara’s hand in hers when they first met that this was it. That Kara was it.
And that was, and still is, terrifying. 
When they had first met, Lena hadn’t been ready for Kara. Hadn’t been ready for everything that Kara represented and would come to mean. She had needed the time, the time to lower her guard, to trust and hope. 
And now, she was ready and she knew exactly how to let Kara know.
The class came to an end with Lena giving her students a quick speech on how proud of their progress she was and wishing them a good spring break. Kara lingered behind as was now custom, helping Lena tidy up the area before they headed out together.  
“Kara?” Lena called out nervously, sweaty palms rubbing against her black denim covered thighs as her heart beat thunderously in her chest. “I was wondering…” Lena began, clearing her throat as Kara stopped what she was doing to give Lena her undivided attention. “Can I… can I draw you?”
Kara’s brow instantly furrowed in confusion, “I thought-”
“Yeah…” Lena laughed shyly, staring into deep blue eyes, practically begging for Kara to understand what she was really saying. “Can I?” Lena repeated.
Kara pursed her lips thoughtfully as she studied Lena’s expression - it was then Lena realised that Kara understood exactly why they had been waiting. Kara wasn’t replying because she wanted to check that Lena was sure, was giving Lena a chance to delay, was saying - without really saying it - that she could wait longer.
Lena didn’t take the escape Kara offered, instead she lifted her head higher and arched an eyebrow at the blonde.
A thousand-watt smile of excitement took up residence on Kara’s face as she nodded eagerly, “Of course.” 
“Clothes on.” Lena clarified - she had promised herself that the first time she truly studied Kara’s body it would be in a setting where touching would not break any professional standards. 
***
Lena had Kara sit opposite her in her private studio, their knees pressed tightly against one another providing a warm point of contact to keep them grounded. Lena’s gaze flickered from her sketchpad to Kara’s features; occasionally, she would reach out to adjust a lock of golden hair so it caught the light. Kara, meanwhile, had an ever constant soft smile that didn’t diminish for the entirety of the session even as she was forced to rein in her boundless curiosity to stop herself from sneaking a peek at Lena’s sketch until it was ready to be revealed.
Lena only drew Kara’s head because, though, she had spent countless hours in the presence of Kara’s naked body over the course of the last few weeks - when Lena thought of Kara (really thought about her in the way that made her heart skip), it wasn’t her abs or her biceps that Lena pictured (though she did think about them regularly when she was in her bed alone at night). 
It was Kara’s eyes that Lena thought about most. 
How they were so bright and hopeful whilst simultaneously melancholic and lost.
There were whole galaxies in those blue eyes and Lena knew that she could spend the rest of her life drawing them and never get bored, nor get them exactly right.
“What do you think?” Lena asked, slowly turning her sketchbook round for Kara to see.
It wasn’t finished. It was mere line work that would require further detailing but it was a good start and she hoped Kara could see its potential like she did with everything else in the world - like she did with Lena.
“It’s…” Kara began, licking her lips as she pulled the sketchbook closer to her chest like it was something treasured and infinitely rare. “It's incredible.” Kara breathed, the sincerity of her words undeniable due to how they were accompanied by a watery film to her blue eyes.
“I like your body.” Lena whispered, shattering the companionable silence they had drifted into as Kara admired Lena’s artistry.
“W-w-what?” Kara stammered, head jerking up at the out-of-the-blue declaration.
Lena reached out for the sketchbook, lifting it out of Kara’s hand and placing it on the nearby table so that she could take Kara’s hands in hers. 
“You asked if I liked your body a while ago,” Lena reminded the blonde, “and I just thought you should know that I do. I really, really do. I mean really.” Lena emphasised, glancing appreciatively down at Kara’s body prompting the blonde to blush a pleased pink. “But it's more than just that. It’s become more than that. Talking after class, getting coffee, going for dinner… it's the best part of my week. You’re the best part of my week.”
“Lena-” Kara began, her mouth suddenly snapping shut as her jaw clenched and her chin lifted in determination. Blue eyes studied Lena for a long moment and all Lena could do was hold her breath and wait. 
Lena made Kara wait weeks, she could therefore wait the stretched seconds that Kara needed in return without complaint
Kara got confidently to her feet, tugging Lena up with her, squeezing their hands once before releasing her so that she could reach up to tenderly cup Lena’s face. “I’m going to kiss you now.” Kara declared, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Thank fu-” Lena sighed gratefully, cut off from offering up her thanks by Kara’s perfect lips sliding over hers.
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cupcakesandtv · 3 years ago
Text
So Jealous
Did yall know it was @emmanelsons birthday?????? It is. And for this bitch I love so dearly, I had to do something special. So I wrote porn. This entire fic is inspired by her fic, It Started Out With a Kiss, that I've definitely read many times. Call this an homage. A shrine to jealous Paxton and slutty Devi. And Ben sucks.
Read it on ao3
Paxton was not the jealous type. Ever. Mostly because he never really cared enough about anyone to bother with that messy emotion. If a person was flirting with someone else, he didn’t get jealous, he just figured that little fling was nearing its expiration date and he acted accordingly. That’s why Devi cheating on him with Ben Gross was so heinous. He liked her enough to be jealous. He liked her enough to be hurt. He liked her enough that he started comparing himself to Ben Gross. Talk about humiliating.
Ben Gross was short and had bug eyes and dressed like the Steve Buscemi “hello fellow kids” meme but he was smart. Straight A, honor roll, PSAT aceing, teacher’s pet, first person to point and laugh when Paxton found out he failed American History meaning he had to repeat it jerk. And Paxton was sure that big brained little asshole was still interested in Devi. And in general, that didn’t bother Paxton. If Devi was anywhere near Paxton, she was the sun and he was just orbiting around her but she looked at him like he was the only person in the universe. That was a lot of space talk but he’d just finished Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson and he was into the metaphor.
But liking Devi, maybe even loving Devi, meant that every time Ben’s round head turned towards Devi, Paxton felt a sudden urge to punch his face. It was unusual because typically, he didn’t think he was inclined to violence. Sure, he loved Call of Duty but he preferred his hands slicing through the pool water to win a relay than punching. But Ben’s face was so goddamn punchable. And he put that mopey look on when Devi did anything which was absurd because seconds before, he was usually spouting some obnoxious or cruel insult at Devi. Dude was fucked up.
Mr. Shapiro let them choose their own groups. That was the get in his class. You wouldn’t end up with somebody you didn’t like because he let you choose. But there was a sub and she broke everyone into groups having the kids number off which meant Paxton ended up in a group with Eleanor (fine) but Devi was in a group with Ben and Ben was across the room practically drooling in Devi’s direction. She did look cute today. She was wearing this shirt that he liked that had several straps on the shoulders that melded into one strap on each shoulder and it rolled up at the bottom so he liked to find excuses to touch her skin at her waist that was bare.
It was his own thing. He knew Devi was solid. She was giving Ben her tired but listening smile. Paxton only got that one if he went on too long about pool chlorination or if he was talking about all the ways he would have fixed Game of Thrones. But that twerp reached over his desk and brushed some invisible something off Devi’s arm and Paxton almost ripped his textbook in half.
The minute the bell rang, Paxton was up and across the room, taking Devi by the hand. She was mildly surprised at his pace to get her out of there but even more surprised when he pressed her into her locker before she could open it and kissed her deeply enough to have gotten both of them detention. Ben Gross walked by and didn’t even stop at his locker. Good. Devi opened her eyes and looked at him like she was drunk.
“What was that for?” she asked, her eyes a little hazy. He put his hand on that stretch of skin on her back, just above her waist, and slowly moved his fingers into her waistband. “Nothing,” he lied. “You wanna skip next period and go to my garage?”
Devi shook her head and turned to open her locker. Paxton kept his hands on her, they just moved as she turned so now they were on her hips. He kissed her neck, licking the spot first and then kissing it.
“I can’t miss Chemistry. We have a test,” she said, laughing when he blew across the skin of her neck. “And no cheesy chemistry jokes.” She looked over her shoulder at him and he took the excuse to kiss her again. His tongue slid past hers, she put her hand on his cheek and groaned before smacking his cheek playfully. “I have to go to class!”
“Fine.” But he pouted. -
Paxton took Devi lunch. She was filling in for a model UN kid who blew chunks all over the judges of the previous day’s events and they had to get special permission for her to even step in.
“You got banned from Model UN?” Paxton asked again, as he handed Devi her burger.
“For starting a coup at the Model UN thing at UC Davis a few months ago.” Devi took the burger and handed him her phone. “Can you plug this in behind you?”
He took the phone and the cable she was offering and plugged the phone in on the wall behind him while Devi bit into her burger.
“But they let you back in?”
“Because Mr. Shapiro promised I would not start any coups and since we’re the home team, they allowed it.”
“You started a coup,” he said again. “But you’re not gonna start one today. Or you’ll be perma banned.” Devi nodded.
“Why’d you start a coup?”
“Funny story, actually.” Devi made a grabby hand in his direction and he handed her the soda. “Ben Gross-”
“I don’t even need to hear the rest of the story,” Paxton cut her off. “I do not care. If he was involved, whatever you did was totally the best choice.” “Thank you,” Devi said, vindicated.
Some of the other Model UN kids walked by, all of various nerd degrees, including a kid who was easily a foot shorter than Devi wearing a suit that was too big for him, and he winked at Devi. And see, that didn’t bother Paxton. He wasn’t at all jealous of that little guy.
“Looking like Hillary Clinton!” the kid shouted at Devi.
“Hillary Clinton?” Paxton asked surprised and Devi shrugged. “No, that kid is wrong, you look like AOC, deeply intelligent and smokin’ hot, ready to change the world.”
Devi smiled so wide she was beaming. He loved when she did that. He loved when he said something or did something that made her smile like that.
“Hey, David, we gotta get back in there.” Ben Gross ruined everything.
“Be right there,” Devi responded, perfectly reasonable. But something in Paxton snapped.
He nodded and listened to her talk while she finished her burger but the minute she was done, onion breath and all, he tugged on her arm and made a beeline for the nearest girl’s restroom.
“What are we doing?” she asked, giddy and breathless from the way he dragged her. She had to run to keep up and she did not like running.
He lifted Devi onto the bathroom counter, wedged himself between her legs and started kissing her. By the time the other girls of Model UN walked in, he had her blouse unbuttoned and was kneading her breast while she moaned every time he licked into her mouth. Her tight bun was undone and she was using the heel of her foot on his back to pull him closer to her, desperate for friction.
“Devi, we need-” the red headed girl stopped the same time Paxton turned to look at her and just behind her, the door was open to the hall, and Ben Gross stood, his mouth open like a fish.
“Get out!” Devi shouted. “I mean, I’ll be out in a minute!” she offered nicer. “Someone get her phone, it’s still plugged in by the table in the other room,” Paxton ordered, making sure his body was blocking hers from everyone else. Then he went back to kissing down her neck. “Sorry, you’re gonna get banned from Model UN again,” he said into the skin of her neck, not sorry at all.
She pushed against his shoulder while he reached for the buttons on her blouse. “You liar,” Devi said. She started pulling her hair back up into the bun. “You’re not sorry.” “Sorry…” he trailed off as he did the last button and tugged her skirt down. “I couldn’t get you off before they came looking for you.” Devi rolled her eyes but kissed him one more time before hopping off the counter. -
He didn’t want to be at this party.
“Why are we going to a party at your ex-boyfriend's house?” he asked, annoyed. He pulled into her driveway and turned the Jeep off.
Devi made a face. “Don’t call him that.”
“That’s what he is,” Paxton replied plainly. “Everybody is going to be there,” Devi explained, ignoring his comment. She unbuckled her seatbelt and grabbed her book bag from the back. She turned back and gave him a quick kiss on the lips.
“Everybody as in Eleanor, Fabiola, and Aneesa or everybody as in people I know?” He reached for her shoulder, sliding his finger under the strap and bit his lip to not smile at the way he saw her skin pebble at the touch. God, these days even just her mentioning Ben Gross and he was ready to fuck her into a mattress to forget that tool existed.
“Rude,” she leaned in and kissed him, slower this time, nipping at his bottom lip. “You know Eleanor and Fabiola and Aneesa. But yes, it’s a whole big party. He’s trying to impress some girl and Aneesa wanted to stay home but we convinced her she should show up looking hot and make Ben jealous.”
So he was at this party. But he’d already come up with a great plan. He brought Devi’s two piece, (yes, he kept it at his house. Sometimes they went swimming and if he wanted to be prepared for any moment they might swim, he needed to keep one of her swimsuits in his possession.) and handed it to her the minute they pulled up. “We’re swimming? But I did my hair cute,” Devi whined.
“Then I won’t get it wet,” he replied, tucking some hair behind her ear. “It is cute.”
Devi talked to her friends, Paxton assured Aneesa she looked very good and whatever freshman Ben was interested in, he was just embarrassing himself. And Paxton was sincere because he liked Aneesa. He was deeply confused what Aneesa or Devi had ever seen in that douche canoe but whatever. He also dropped that Eddie might be interested in Aneesa so he felt like he’d done his good deed for the evening.
“Why didn’t you mention that Eddie liked Aneesa sooner?” Devi asked, kicking her feet in the water from where she sat on the edge of the pool.
“How did you not know? He’s a simp for girls who play soccer. Even the lesbians. He’s got a type and it’s emotionally unavailable soccer players.” Paxton stood up and bounced on his toes. “What?” Devi asked, before Paxton hopped from foot to foot before doing a front flip into the pool. “Jesus!”
Paxton sunk into the water with the familiar whoosh that made him feel like he could take on the whole world. As he came up, he saw Devi shaking her head at him, but she was gnawing on her lip and almost smiling. More than that, she was looking at him like she wanted to eat him up. He stood up and tugged on her waist, lifting her into the pool while she squealed. “You gotta stop jumping into the shallow end like that, you, of all people, should know that’s dangerous,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and sliding her legs down and around his waist until she put her feet on the floor of the pool.
“I’m an expert, I can flip into the shallow end,” he said, pressing his whole body against hers. He leaned in and kissed her shoulder, twisting his finger in the strap of her bikini top as an excuse to touch her further.
“Oh my god,” she said with a giggle. “People are going to see us!” “They’re not watching us,” he said, using his hand to smoothly turn her around so she could see out at the party. He kept his hand on her stomach, just under the water, and tugged her against his chest. “Feels like you’re getting off on being caught in public these days.” She wiggled her ass just barely, causing his dick to react. With one hand still on her stomach, he moved his other from her hip down her thigh before moving it back up to the band of her bikini bottom, slipping his whole hand down the front of suit. She gasped and leaned into him. “Fuck,” she let out slow. “I know somebody is calling me a slut right now. I’m sure of it.” Paxton nipped at her ear. “Look,” he said and she shivered as he spoke against her ear. He moved his hand that was resting on her pubic bone so he could turn her in the direction he was looking. “Nobody is watching us.” He pointed with his chin towards a small crowd by the patio. “The only people outside are your friends and Trent. He’s mad Eleanor is ignoring him.”
“What’s that about?” she asked, putting her hand over his and pressing it into her further. He rewarded her for that by following her lead and sliding his hand down further, so his fingers could brush her clit. Her sharp intake of breath had him feeling lightheaded. She liked it and he liked it and this party wasn’t so bad now.
“I don’t know, but it’s getting weird.” “Hm?” Devi asked, confused, her eyes closed now as he moved his finger around in an oval, just missing her clit every third stroke. “What’s weird?”
“You asked about Trent and Eleanor,” he answered before sucking a spot on her neck and then brushing his nose against the back of her ear.
“People are gonna-” she stopped, when he slipped a finger inside her. With his free hand he moved her chin towards another group of people on the side of the house. “None of them are looking at us,” he assured her, sliding a second finger inside her. She whined just barely, her muscles tightened, and she pressed further into him. “Marcus is teaching Zoe how to roll a joint which is stupid. He should just give her an edible and be done with it.”
“Are we about to fuck in this pool?” she asked, breathless.
“No,” he said as he took a step forward, giving them the privacy of the pool wall, but able to keep his eyes on everyone else, just in case. She reached up and put a hand behind his neck. “There’s no friction in a pool,” he explained. “I could get off, but you couldn’t so why bother?”
Devi’s breathing was erratic and her skin was tight, she was pressing into him and riding his hand, her feet weren’t even on the floor of the pool anymore as she tried to discreetly position herself for more of what he was offering.
“If you just-” Her nails dug into the skin of his neck as he curled his fingers inside her and worked his thumb around her clit.
There was a crash inside the house but Devi didn’t notice. Paxton looked up and saw everyone running towards the sound, then people were laughing, some idiot probably fell over and now everyone was inside, leaving Devi and Paxton as the only ones outside. Devi ground down on his hand, her nails on his neck were going to break skin if he didn’t- “So close,” she muttered, pressing her own fingers into her clit and then her whole body went stiff.
“You were so quiet,” he said, kissing her cheek as he slowly removed his hand and rested it on her waist again.
“Seriously, what is up with you lately?” she asked, still out of breath. “Nothing,” he lied.
“Let’s go back to your house.” Devi grabbed his hand and started walking towards the stairs of the pool. “That wasn’t enough?” he asked, feeling smug. Devi spun on her heel, the water moving made his dick twitch. Well, the water moving and the way she was looking at him, all that fire in her eyes. “You could just take me home, but I don’t think you’re ready to do that.” She moved the hand she was holding to her mouth so she could kiss his knuckles. “I’m not gonna make it home,” he said. “Let’s just go inside. To change. And then we’ll go home.”
“To change, yeah whatever, dude,” Devi said, dragging him out of the pool.
They didn’t have towels but Devi knew where the linen closet upstairs was, so she grabbed them as he led her through the hall until he got to the master bedroom. He shut the door and took a towel Devi offered and dried himself off as best he could. Devi was rubbing the towel across her stomach and Paxton couldn’t help himself, he tackled her (gently as he could) so they landed on the bed. She laughed and used her legs to roll him over so she was straddling his waist. She leaned in and kissed him. Softly at first, but then she started to rock her hips against his and her kisses became frantic.
Paxton held her back, his fingers deftly working the clasp on her bikini top. Once he got it undone, he rolled, putting her underneath him again. He kissed her along her collarbone and palmed her breast under the loose fabric. He tongued the nipple of her other breast through the fabric and Devi moaned.
“You locked the door, right?” she whispered, putting a hand in his hair and scratching at his scalp. “Definitely.” But actually he wasn’t sure he had. Didn’t matter though. Nobody was going to find them up there. He licked into her belly button while he dragged her swim bottoms down her thighs, exposing her cunt. He kissed her knee and then up her thigh, tossing the swim suit over his shoulder before he moved the small tuft of hair out of the way with his thumb and sucked on her clit. Devi’s hips jerked up, she could have broken his nose with the force if he hadn’t been prepared for her to do exactly that. He had his forearm across her stomach to keep her down. Devi finally cried out. Besides whines and moans, she’d been incredibly quiet, likely because she was so worried about being caught when they were in the pool. She rested her leg over his shoulder and he got to work. Devi was huffing, these tiny breaths and whines like she was close already. They hadn’t been having sex that long but Devi was very clear in telling him what she liked and he was happy to oblige. Having sex with her was fun and easy and incredibly hot.
The door opened and Paxton immediately lifted himself enough to block Devi from view of whoever opened the door. She screamed and he shouted, “Get out!” at the same time.
But the door didn’t shut so Paxton was forced to turn his head and see who interrupted them.
“In my parents’ bedroom?!” Ben Gross stood horrified at the door. Paxton tried to keep himself from being too smug about the situation. Devi would kill him if she knew. “Be grateful I didn’t pick your room, now get the fuck out,” Paxton snapped and Devi tried to move around him to see. “Babe, if you move like that, you’re gonna give him a show he doesn’t deserve.”
“Ben!” Devi shouted, she’d given up trying to see the door and instead was just shouting at the ceiling annoyed. “Stop being a perv and get out!”
For some reason, Devi’s request was heeded by Ben and Paxton lifted himself up and off of her. But when he moved down to continue at his task, Devi shook her legs and huffed. “Nope,” she said, reaching for his face and urging him to move up. “Actually, get me my bag over there.” He reached for it and she dug a shirt out of her bag and put it on. She pulled her shorts out and put those on next and then handed him his shirt. “If we’re sitting here half dressed I’m not gonna be able to get through to you. You’re gonna do something and I’m gonna get horny and it’s not gonna work.”
“Or you could let me finish and then everybody will be happy?”
But Devi was all business now. She had that look like when she pretended to be his Indian mother and it easily softened the boner he had. He put his shirt on and sat next to her on the bed. “I thought you were just getting hot from the public stuff but I’m beginning to worry that being caught by Ben is actually turning you on and I’m just wondering why that is?” She didn’t seem mad, just perplexed. Paxton could just come clean but he was embarrassed to even say it.
“It’s not that. I’m just super into you lately and you being this hot and this smart and funny, how am I supposed to not-” “Bullshit,” Devi cut him off. “I know you think I’m hot and I know you like to have sex as much as I do which is a relief because I thought maybe I was just a slut or something but-” “You’re not a slut! And you’re not weird for wanting to have sex, sex is fucking great!” Paxton hated that she thought she was weird like that. She was weird in plenty of good ways but liking sex was not one of them. “And I like having sex with you. It’s a lot of fun. You’re not shy about what you like and I like that.”
“Great,” Devi said. “But we do not usually mess around this much. I thought you were hormonal or something. Yesterday I googled if men were like cats in heat.”
“I’m sorry.” He hung his head.
“You don’t have to apologize, I like it! It just feels like something is off and I want you to feel comfortable telling me.” Devi put her hand on his knee and held his gaze. “And it feels like it’s something about Ben Gross which is weird and I really want to get it sorted out.”
Paxton looked away. If he looked at her, he’d probably just spill out all the shit he pushed down and all his insecurities. Devi moved her head to catch his gaze. “Please?” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it rip, “Ben Gross still likes you and it makes me furious.”
Devi’s serious face turned softer, a smile just barely forming. “You’re mad at me?”
“No!” he didn’t hesitate. “No, I hate him!”
“Okay,” Devi said, nodding and mulling over what he’d said. “It annoys me too but I can’t change the way he feels. Are you,” she paused and bit her lip. “Are you afraid that I still like him? That what happened before might happen again?”
She hated talking about the couple of weeks when she dated both of them. She did her best to never bring it up. But she did now. And the look on her face told him Devi was worried how he would respond. He thought about it a second because he wanted to be clear.
“I trust you.”
Devi seemed to relax instantly. She gave him a little smile and squeezed his knee.
“It’s just…” Paxton started and Devi’s face fell. “We don’t make sense.” He gestured between the two of them. “We have so much fun, I have so much fun and I love hanging out with you and I love…” he stopped. Maybe he should change direction. “If I were to make a pros and cons chart of Ben Gross vs me, all I’ve got on him is being hot and being way better at making you cum.”
Devi’s brows furrowed and he worried this would be it. The jig was up. He’d accidentally convinced her she should go out with Ben Gross instead.
“Holy shit,” Devi whispered. “Have you been trying to use sex to keep me?”
“What? No,” Paxton replied easily. He hadn’t thought of it like that at all but as the words clicked into place, goddamn she was smarter than he was. “Maybe?”
Devi looked at him like he was pathetic. He put his head in his hands, embarrassed. But Devi tipped his chin up and then held his cheek. “You don’t have to fuck me into loving you,” Devi said, firmly, like she meant it. Paxton tried to swallow but there was a lump in his throat. “You don’t just have good looks and sexual experience. I mean, you do have those things, and your tongue should probably have papers written about all the things you can do with it, put it in a mold of it in the MoMA but that’s not all you have. That’s not why I like you.”
Devi sighed and straightened her shoulders. “You have this weird superpower that gets me to say things I wouldn’t tell somebody else. Like even my therapist. And I want to tell you things. Even if I’m afraid you might think I’m weird, you’re the person I want to tell my shit to.”
Devi put her other hand on his other cheek so she was cradling his face. “You have the butterflies in my stomach when you compliment me. The way you reach for my hand anytime, anywhere. You always want to be holding my hand. At first I thought you’d get tired of it because my hands get so sweaty and gross but you don’t care, you always wanna hold my hand.” Paxton wanted to kiss her and hold her hand some more but he really wanted to hear what else she was going to say because she was still going and he was on the edge of his seat. He’d never been so happy to be wrong about something. “And you’re kind and you’re considerate and you’re smart and you never look down on anybody which is legit bonkers because you could look down on people. You deserve to look down on people. You’re exactly the kind of person who is allowed to do that. But you don’t.”
“That one sounds like a very specific gut punch at Ben Gross,” he said, almost smiling. “Yeah, it is. And I should explain, I figured it out after we’d been dating a few weeks. I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner but I didn’t even know you needed to hear it.” Devi closed her eyes and put her forehead against his, her hands still holding his face. “I know I said I liked you both so much and that’s why I tried all that shit before. But I know now that I was just so worried that nobody would like me, that I would miss my chance for anybody to like me, I thought that would be better. Unfortunately, I fucked around and found out.” Paxton let out a small laugh and Devi opened her eyes to smile at him.
“I liked Ben in between because you said we didn’t make sense. And then Aneesa liked him and I thought I liked him but really I was just mad that someone else did and I thought he was my last chance at an attainable boyfriend. But he’s annoying and he’s mean and when he’s not interested in me, he’s actually really cruel. And that’s pretty fucked up.”
“He’s an asshole,” Paxton couldn’t stop himself from adding.
“Yeah, he is. So he can stare at me all pining or whatever but I want you. I’ve always wanted you. I love you,” Devi said the last bit quieter, like she wasn’t sure how he would respond but he couldn’t hold back anymore. He leaned in and kissed her. Hard. He put his hands in her hair and moved closer to her, as if there was any space left. She smiled against his lips. “So maybe I’m not the only one?”
“I love you, Devi.” He felt himself grinning wide. He probably looked so stupid. “I’m sorry. I just never liked anybody enough to be jealous and Ben was making me so jealous. It was weird. I didn’t like it.”
She smiled and for the first time in the last week, he felt lighter.
Devi’s phone started vibrating and when she looked at her phone, the notifications just kept popping up. “Everybody is looking for us,” Devi said, pulling the swim top out of her shirt and handing it to Paxton. “Where are my bottoms?”
Paxton picked them up at the door and tucked them into his pocket with the top. “Got ‘em.”
When they made it downstairs, the party was clearing out but Ben stepped in front of them when they tried to leave. He held his phone up to them and Devi gasped. Paxton had been holding her hand but immediately let go to snatch the phone out of Ben’s hand.
“What the fuck?” Devi asked Ben, horrified. “I’m deleting it,” Paxton told her, stopping the video from playing. He knew what it was immediately and the fact that Ben had the nerve to show them made Paxton want to hit him. Now was an appropriate time. Surely. But first he deleted the video.
“You took video of us in the pool! That’s gross!” Devi shook her head and Ben stood there smug.
“You’re having sex in my pool! I think the whole school should know that’s the kind of person you are, Devi, a slut.”
Paxton verified he deleted the file off the cloud and the phone and then chucked it right at Ben’s face. It hit Ben squarely in the nose and he yelped before covering his nose. “Don’t call her a slut!” Paxton shouted. “Don’t call anybody a slut, you prick. You’re lucky I deleted that instead of sending a copy to the cops. I thought you were smart but you’d look real stupid in court while your dad is trying to defend you from becoming a sex offender.”
Ben looked confused. “What?”
“That’s underage porn you just showed us, dumbass,” Devi explained. “That shit will get you registered as a sex offender. He’s right, that was top shelf stupid. Massive fuck up.”
The phone was on the floor, but Paxton stomped on it for good measure.
“The chlorine in your pool will cover any germs you’re worried about, but you should probably shock it tonight. And fire your pool guy, he sucks. The PH is all wrong in there.”
Devi took his hand and walked past a fuming Ben.
“You know, if we can get you to understand chemistry in terms of pool PH, I feel like you could easily ace it,” Devi said, lifting his hand to her mouth and kissing it.
“I passed chem last year with a C, I’m not retaking it.” He opened the door to the Jeep so Devi could get in. “Not even for you. No matter how much I love you.”
Devi laughed. “Now we know for college.”
“Yeah, for college.”
-- One more fun author's note because I couldn't figure out a way to get this detail in as the fic is from Paxton's POV, but Devi definitely tricked him into keeping her bikini because if her mom saw that suit going through the wash, she'd flip her shit.
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gospi · 2 years ago
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The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye
My new Malec fic is out.
A human/arranged marriage/fake/pretend relationship AU.
You could find the entire chapter on Ao3.
Artwork from the amazing @commanderApril1 on Twitter
@khaleesiofalicante you wanted to be tagged when this mess was up. Here you are.
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The warm light of the February sun on his back created a long shadow of his tall frame. Spring had made a tentative try, but the winter still had a strong hold over New York, and Alec buried his nose deeper down in his scarf and stuffed his hands further down his pockets. Alec didn't like the cold; he prefered when the sun actually warmed him up. 
He minded his steps, avoiding all the puddles of water on the pavement, eager to reach his destination; a warm room, even if the company therein didn't offer much warmth. Alec stopped for a moment, taking in the impressive building before him. Morgenstern Publishing: same as its owner, the building was flashy and made a lot of promises. But once you were inside, it would swallow you whole, rob you of everything, and then spit you out in a back alley somewhere. Alec knew this, and he was still there. Like an impending doom, he didn't have a choice.
Alec welcomed the long, solitary ride up to his agent's office since it gave him some time to gather his thoughts. At twenty-four Alec had, as expected of him, joined the family firm, where his mother ruled with an iron fist. It's not that Alec didn't want to work there, it's not that he didn't like corporate law. It's just that he didn't choose that for himself. Since he had been born, his parents had taken every possible measure to make sure Alec would follow in his father's political footsteps, preferably surpass him and reach the White House. Never had they cared what Alec wanted, but, on the other hand, he had never questioned it either. Not until the day that he, then still a pre-law student, had seen the community flier for a Creative Arts Class. That was the first time in his academic history that he did something for himself. The moment he had decided to enter that world was the moment his life had changed inevitably.  
The elevator pinged and the door slid open. Alec stepped outside and looked around, his heart heavier with every second passing by.
"Good morning, Mr. Lightwood," his agent's PA greeted him. "Mr. Starkweather is running a bit late, but I'm told to bring you to his office."
Alec managed to smile, and followed the young PA through the door. As he sat down, the PA handed him a cup of coffee with a small smile on their face and left Alec alone with his thoughts. He was screwed; he never should have trusted Valentine Morgenstern. But his father had vouched for him, telling Alec that if he ever wanted to succeed as an author, Morgenstern Publishing was the way to achieve it. Alec should have known. He knew his father better than that, knew when he was just spewing a lot of bullshit, but against his better judgment, Alec had listened. Once again trying to appease his father, and where had that taken him other than being summoned 'to talk about the future' by his agent?
Alec sipped on his coffee, sinking down even further in the chair, as the door to the office opened. Hodge didn't greet him, looking all tense as he rounded around his desk and sat down to face him. Alec swallowed as he took in the stern expression of his agent. Bile rose in his throat; this conversation wasn't going to be pleasant. He took another long drink, an attempt to calm his nerves.
"Before we start, I need to remind you that what we discuss here is not for the public to know. It stays between us. And I promise everything will make sense in the end."
Hodge's first words did nothing to reassure Alec, and the lump in his throat felt tighter by the second.
"Alec, you know I like you," Hodge started again, albeit hesitantly. "I've seen you grow up, even if it was from afar and I want you to succeed. The only reason I suggest this is because it is the only way for you to do that." Hodge was nervously plucking the hem of his
Perplexed, Alec stared at Hodge. The other man wasn't usually this personal. He was no longer strictly business, which made Alec shift uncomfortably in his seat and an awkward silence fell between them.
Then Hodge continued and Alec could never, not even in his wildest dreams, have imagined the words falling off his lips.
"You need to be gay."
Alec sputtered out his coffee, his jaw dropped comically low and his eyes almost popped out of their sockets. "I have to be WHAT!?"
Hodge looked at him, his face still an inscrutable mask. "You need to be gay," he repeated.
The statement created a tidal wave of emotions that swept over Alec as his brain short-circuited – disbelief and shock and indignation all came crashing into and over one another as he struggled to wrap his mind around Hodge's words.
"What!? Are you serious?" Alec's high-pitched voice broke at the end.
"Do I look like I'm joking to you?"
No, he really didn't. Alec needed to be gay? He struggled to piece together his thoughts; his expectations beforehand of what this conversation would be like and the actual outcome. It made absolutely no sense to him – how him being gay could possibly have anything to do with his future as a writer.
Hodge slamming a magazine on the desk before him broke off Alec's racing mind and brought him back to the present. Alec looked at the front page of the magazine and his mind went blank. He slowly recognized the radiant man on the cover; the signature hair, in a faux-hawk with shaved sides, and the glittery, kohl lined eyes. The man had several necklaces of various lengths that fell across the chest made visible by his half-open shirt, both hands adorned with multiple rings.
Magnus Bane.
The heir of Edom Inc, the man that everyone wanted to be seen with, the man everyone knew. The epitome of a playboy. The social media sweetheart. The picture didn’t quite do him justice, in Alec's opinion. His eyes didn’t have that spark Alec was so used to from other media. Magnus Bane was vivid, vibrant; a force of nature and this picture was the result of a poor attempt to confine all that into a stiff photograph. Not that Magnus looked uncomfortable, he simply didn’t look happy.
"You also need to marry Magnus Bane," Hodge stated.
Holy shit.
Continue reading on Ao3
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sky-scribbles · 3 years ago
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Fanfic ask game for procrastinating on writing (very accurate, since I should really be working on either the Aeor Fic or my dissertation right now). Tagged by @essektheylyss and @saturdaysky - tysm, this is very fun! <3
1) How many works do you have on AO3?
28! I only really started posting regularly on AO3 after I got into writing for CR, so there’s a modest amount there right now.
2) What’s your total AO3 word count?
~126000; probably going to be a lot more by the time the Aeor Fic is finished!.
3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?
Only three on AO3 - Critrole, obviously, plus some from my Star Wars: The Old Republic days and a single lonely Dragon Age fic. I’ve written for some other fandoms in the past (Elder Scrolls, mainly).
4) What are your top five fics by kudos?
Show me where my skin begins: Shadowgast; a study of Essek’s touch starvation and the important of touch between him and Caleb as their relationship develops.
My reasons for defying reason: Oneshot looking at Essek’s friendships with each of the Nein in turn, and the Nein’s different love languages.
I shine only with the light you gave me: The wizards slow dance at a fancy Dynasty ball, and Essek negotiates Den dynamics.
I’ll use you as a focal point: Essek summons a familiar, and as he adjusts to life with her, she helps him speedrun his character arc.
How to struggle gracefully: The Mighty Nein and Essek have dinner with Deirta Thelyss, as told through Veth’s perspective. Feat. Veth unpacking some of her own issues and her relationship with Essek
5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?
Not as much as I’d like to anymore; my current health issues mean I have trouble writing at all, let alone replying to comments... but when I’m functioning better, I do try to reply to as many as I can! I absolutely love seeing people’s insights and hearing their thoughts; you guys make every second of writer’s block worth it! <3
6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
Hmm, I really don’t know! I’m generally an angst with a happy ending person, so I tend to round things off hopefully. I’d say that The scars that silence carved on me maybe qualifies, because from Essek’s perspective, it ends somewhat ambiguously - but the reader obviously knows that he’s about to get tackle-hugged by a little blue tiefling the moment after the fic ends.
7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?
Not really. My Inquisitor!Essek AU is about the closest I’ve got, but I’m not sure I’d ever write anything or it.
8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?
Not since I was about fourteen, thankfully! I’ve had the odd ‘I hate [x character/fandom] but I love this story’ comment here and there.
9) Do you write smut? If so what kind?
Not really. I’ve occasionally strayed into very vaguely nsfw stuff, but I don’t think I’d enjoy writing real smut, nor do I have any confidence that I’d do so halfway decently!
10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I know of!
11) Have you ever had a fic translated?
I did once, many years ago back when I was writing Elder Scrolls stuff.
12) Have you ever co-written a fic before?
No, but I’m definitely not opposed to the idea!
13) What’s your all time favourite ship?
My fic history says Shadowgast, for sure, and I can see them being a love of mine for a very long time.
14) What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
Nothing that’s posted, thankfully, but I’d truly love to finish the one that currently sits under the working title of ‘the Essek and soup fic’. I’m very fond of it, but just don’t seem to be able to make work beyond its first scene. (Maybe I’ll post that as a standalone someday.)
15) What are your writing strengths?
I like to think I’ve got a good sense for prose rhythm? When I’m proofreading, I can generally count on a voice in my head to be saying ‘this sentence needs to be x length’, or ‘this sentence needs another adjective in it to carry the right emotional weight’, and to tell me when something just feels right and flows nicely.
16) What are your writing weaknesses?
I think I have a bit of a tendency to want to include everything - every interesting thought and bit of character exploration that I come up with in the planning process. Also, plotting! The reason I’ve generally stuck to oneshots is because I find writing lengthier plots really, really hard; sooner or later I just get stumped, thinking ‘ok, but what happens now?’ There’s a reason planning the Aeor fic has taken several months!
17) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
It’s not something I’d do myself, mostly because I really wouldn’t want to mess up another language in a fic - but I’ve seen it really suit certain stories before.
18) What was the first fandom you wrote for?
It is... really hard to remember that far back, but probably either Skyrim or Torchwood. I did not do so well, but I did it :’D
19) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?
Show me where my skin begins has a special place in my heart for being such huge fun to write and for being a truly feelgood fic. Familiar (like my mirror years ago) will always be important to me just for being my first CR fic and my entry point, as it were, to the CR fandom.
... but I really do hve a soft spot for The scars that silence carved on me, a study of Essek’s growth between 99 and 124. It’ll never be one of my most popular fics - the Nein don’t even appear in it - but I just loved taking Essek through all of these little changes, bridging the gap between the negotations and his reunion with his friends. And there are some scenes and lines in here I’m really proud of.
I think just about everyone I’d love to tag for this has already been tagged, so consider this an open tag for anyone who’d like to do this!
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harpyloon · 4 years ago
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little red
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Pairing: Harry Potter x Ginny Weasley (BUT this is more of a Ginny Weasley and Sirius Black friendship HC if you will)
Summary:  “Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking. - Chapter 33: Fight and Flight (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)
Warnings: Small battle scene, minor mentions of blood and injuries, small mentions of death... I think that’s about it? Mostly fluff and humor.
Word Count: 6.8k+ (oops)
A/N: hello! This is my first time posting an HP fic here so I hope you'll be kind! This idea has been an itch in my brain I've been wanting to scratch ever since I re-read OOTP. It's mostly canon apart from the ending (y'all know what ending I'm talking about lol). Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think!
Order of the Phoenix missing moments
Read on AO3
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sirius always knew. He thinks he's known from the very beginning, but even more so when he chanced upon her creeping down the rickety stairs of Grimmauld Place—clutching a hand full of round mud brown pellets that looked all too familiar—with a mischievous glint in her eyes and lips pursed in strict concentration. With as little noise as she could possibly yield, she made it to the bottom of the second landing, eyeing the offending door with the equally offending Silencing Charms casted to muffle whatever it was the "children" were not allowed to hear.
Leaning over the bannister to get a good view of her target, her fiery red mane tumbled over one shoulder like a curtain, concealing half of her determined face from Sirius who was gazing up at the show with amusement; he was suddenly in no hurry to get back to the meeting that was getting fouler by the day. Although the sounds were muffled, he knew exactly how riled up everyone was behind that door, the very reason he had to step out in the first place.
Fighting in the first war, Sirius knew that every moment for members of the Order of the Phoenix was as good as their last. "We might as well seal our deaths," James's voice echoed through his thoughts at the distant memory of him and his friends officially joining the Order that one bleak winter evening. He could still feel Lily's grip on both his and James's hands as she sat between the two, not once glancing at anyone as Dumbledore spelled out every possible danger being a member of the Order would entail.
"Might as well," Lily breathed out and looked at Dumbledore straight in the eye, "Count us in."
Dumbledore didn't need to look at the rest of the gentleman for approval. Lily might have been James's woman, but whatever Lily Evans said the Marauders always followed.
Almost always.
"Ah, crud."
Sirius is yanked back into the dreary hall of Grimmauld Place, just as a putrid ball of manure bounces off the charmed kitchen door and zooms past the cobwebby chandelier, straight for his startled face. Times like these made Sirius truly grateful for his canine instincts, as he stepped aside just in the nick of time.
The mud brown ball splattered onto a worn-out tapestry, right beside the large troll’s leg umbrella stand.
"Oops."
He glanced back up at Ginny Weasley who was grinning sheepishly down at him from the second landing, "Sorry, Sirius."
"Good aim," said Sirius, winking up at her, "Although I believe your mother has the door Imperturbed, little red."
Ginny scrunched up her nose and it reminded him too much of another red head he knew, "That's no good. Well if Dungbombs won’t work then it's a long shot for Fred and George's Extendable Ears."
Sirius quirked an eyebrow, "Extendable Ears?"
Ginny waved a hand, "Eavesdropping contraptions they made up over the summer—" she stopped short and eyed Sirius warily, "Will you tell? Because if mum finds out, you didn't hear it from me."
Sirius grinned. As if anyone would expect Sirius Black, 1/4 of the Marauders, to ever tattle about anyone's mischief. "Bound me by oath, I shall tell no living soul."
Ginny sighed in relief and tucked her hair behind her ears, leaning over the bannister even further. If Sirius didn't catch the tips of her shoes hooked through the railing, he'd be afraid she'd fall flat on her face.
"What are you doing out here?" she inquired curiously, "That door may be Imperturbed but I'm almost positive I heard yelling."
"Precisely why I'm not in there," he sighed and glanced at the kitchen door. He didn't feel like going back inside the chaos at all.
"Really?" Ginny looked even more interested than she was a minute ago. "Don't tell me it's boring?"
Sirius nearly scoffed, "No, little red. Quite the contrary. But being in a room discussing plans for a war you cannot participate in can get quite stale."
He grimaced at his own tone. Sirius wanted to stop feeling sorry for himself, truly and largely through with all the pitiful stares Remus kept sending his way (although discreet) every time Dumbledore so much as shrugged off his requests at lending a hand (or paw) to anything the Order might need. He knew he was being overbearing, which was the last thing he wanted to make anybody feel with his presence. Although being stuck in his wicked mother's house filled with nothing but forbidding memories did no good to his sanity or his morals. He glanced back up at Ginny who was chewing on her bottom lip, deep in thought.
"Anyway, little red, up you go before your mother finds ou—"
"Wanna play Quidditch?"
Sirius blinked.
"Quidditch?"
"I need to practice."
"Trying out for the team are you?" he asked.
Ginny shrugged, "I think Ron wants to have a go, but he's always been Keeper. Just staying on my toes in case Angelina needs a new Chaser this year."
"Chaser, eh?" said Sirius smiling. "Was Keeper myself back in the old days. James, however, was—"
"Chaser, I know. I also knew you were Keeper," said Ginny impatiently. "So do you want to play?"
Sirius peered curiously up at her once again. He wasn't sure even his own godson knew of his Quidditch history. "How did you know I was Keeper?"
Now Ginny had the nerve to look shameful.
"I've been walking past the Trophy room on the third floor to all my classes since first year," she blushed, "Charms was always fun. Professor Flitwick never really minded if I took too long in the loo."
Her embarrassment ebbed when she saw Sirius's proud grin.
"Anyway, all the Gryffindor teams over the years are listed on the Quidditch board," she said.
"And you have them memorized?"
She ignored him. "So? Will you help me practice? Or were you no good?"
Her eyes held a glint of a challenge and was filled with outpouring mischief Sirius hadn't felt in years.
Dreadful meeting forgotten, he asked, "And where do you propose we are to practice? I've played quite a few years to know we need more than a grimy hallway to fly, little red."
Ginny's eyes were filled with mirth, "I know just the place."
 ----—-----
 Ginny Weasley was a fantastic flyer. Her small but built frame made her agile and quick enough to score a couple (more than a couple) past Sirius, who, admittedly, was rusty on a broom, but could neither deny the fact that the girl was akin to a zapping ball of flame, whizzing past him zealously.
The small alcove behind Grimmauld Place (that Sirius previously remembered to be a dump for old furniture the Black family disposed of ) was cleared and mowed into a backyard of sorts; although the grass was a dying shade of brown, weeds scattered the soil, and the lone shrub by the fence seemed to be in its last breath.
"Mum had Bill and I clear it out just in case the kitchen got too full," explained Ginny. "But nobody's used it yet, and we've still got room. Mad Eye had the surroundings Disillusioned so we can fly as high as the attic."
Sirius spent the next couple of weeks training with Ginny on a Comet Two Sixty they borrowed from Tonks. It was the highlight of his days, superbly scheduled right after Order meetings. An angry Sirius coming out of the kitchens to practice was something Ginny looked forward to (and often hoped, although she'd never admit), only because he wouldn't have the mind to hold out on blocking her Quaffles— almost saving every attempt she had at a perfect goal. There were days when the twins and Ron would come out for a match, three-on-two, and Sirius would give Ron tips on how to Keep.
“You’re fast,” he told Ginny at one point, trying to catch his breath after her third goal of the day; the Quaffle zoomed behind his broom and into the makeshift goal post after her clever diversion of swerving around his front. She raised her eyebrows at him as if to say Duh. He rolled his eyes.
“Have you ever considered Seeking?” he inquired.
“Seeking?” she frowned. “Nope. Never. Besides, that position’s not up in the air anytime soon anyway.”
The perpetual loneliness was in no hurry to crawl back into Sirius's mind. Out of all the members of the Order (children included), it was Ginny Weasley (apart from his godson) who made him feel the most welcomed into the world once again; treated humanely, and not some fugitive on the run. She even managed to find the time to occasionally rally him with a game of Exploding Snap.
One particular night that summer, Molly walked in the living room carrying a tray of sandwiches which she set down beside the two.
"Would you know where the extra sheets are, Sirius?" asked Molly, "I need to prepare Harry's bed for tomorrow."
Sirius doesn't miss the way Ginny paused the slightest, then carried on with playing a card down. He swiftly taps the top card with his wand, his opponent only seconds behind. He grins at her cheekily. She missed.
"That point was mine thank you— Ah yes, Molly, of course. I'll have Kreacher bring the sheets up to Ron and Harry's room."
"Harry's arriving, mum?" asked Ginny behind her cards, seeming as though she was deciding which one to play next.
But Sirius could register her unfocused eyes.
"Mad Eye and the rest are leaving at dusk tomorrow. You best tell Hermione and Ron as well. Like twitching worms those two are, can't stop asking when Harry'll be arriving," Molly sighs wistfully, "My poor boy."
Although he hadn't been in the best moods with Molly these days, Sirius couldn't help but grasp her hand to give it a light squeeze.
"No need to worry, Molly. You know Mad Eye. He'll be very thorough."
"Oh, I suppose you're right," said Molly, squeezing Sirius's hand back and reached out to rake her fingers through her daughter's hair.
"Not tired yet, Ginerva? You spent the whole afternoon flying," she looked back at Sirius reproachingly.
He merely shrugged with a small smile.
"I'll sleep when I beat him," said Ginny, finally looking up from her cards.
"Fat chance, Weasley," said Sirius.
Molly sighed tiredly. "Oh why do I even bother," she grumbled as she gathered the empty mugs on the coffee table and walked back into the kitchen.
"Love you, mum!" Ginny yelled after her mother as she grabbed a sandwich on the tray and started nibbling.
"You haven't drawn," she said with a frown.
Looking from the cards piled on the floor and back to the ones she held, "It's your turn. Go draw."
But Sirius didn't draw.
He gazed at his cards instead, as if concentrating hard.
"So," he spoke casually, "my godson will finally be gracing us with his presence. About time."
Ginny didn't answer.
He looked up from his cards to see her shuffling with her own, mumbling to herself.
"I suppose you two are friends?" he asked.
"Hmm? Oh yeah— er — well, sort of..." she trailed off, clearly having no intention to confirm nor deny.
Sirius waited two beats before realizing she wasn't going to elaborate, "Sort of?" He never really saw much of Ginny around the trio while he tailed them restlessly in dog form through Harry's third year.
"Aren't you going to draw?" she snapped irritably, making a show of how annoyed she was that he was interrupting their game.
"Are you?" he spoke slowly, "Friends with my godson?"
Ginny rolled her eyes. "I heard you the first time."
"But you haven't answered."
"I have! I said yes!"
"Actually, you said 'sort of'."
"Well, I meant 'yes'!" Ginny huffed indignantly, her ears were turning pink. "Are we still playing or not?"
"Fred said you never talked around him," he said casually.
At this remark, blood swiftly rushed to her cheeks and her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Did he now?"
Sirius no longer bothered to hide his grin.
"George said you fancy him even."
Ginny was so red, her freckles were more prominent than ever before. She seemed to be debating whether or not to abandon their game and flee to the safety of her room, or abandon their game to run off and hex her tattle tale twin brothers.
"For your information," she finally spoke, swallowing a lump in her throat before proceeding, "I used to fancy him a little bit. Not anymore, not for a very long time now actually."
“Oh?”
“Over him. Done. Moved on.”
A pair of cards exploded between them, emitting red and orange sparks.
“You’ve done it now,” groaned Ginny. She glanced up at Sirius whom she saw was smiling knowingly at her, his cards abandoned.
“You know what?” she said, “I’m going to bed. Good night, Sirius.”
“Oh come on,” he laughed as she gathered the cards and neatly put them away in a box, “Is Harry that bad? Can’t be as bad as James can he? That git never had the balls to man up to Lily until our 7th yea—"
“I’m seeing someone,” Ginny announced suddenly, which shut Sirius up quickly.
“Seeing someone?” he blinked up at her as she stood from the carpeted floor where they sat and began to gather the cushions around her.
“Yes. Michael Corner. He’s in Ron and Harry’s year, but in Ravenclaw. He's cute. We met at the Yule Ball and been writing at the start summer,” she had a small smile as she mentioned their exchange of letters, as if she had a nice little secret tucked inside her pocket.
Sirius’s brain, however, seemed to have stopped working.
Michael Corner?
His godson was losing a battle to a boy who did his homework? And who maybe even enjoyed it?
"Although I haven't heard from him since we moved here. Can't owl to him now either," she said with a frown, as if she didn't like the thought. "Maybe I should ask Dad to check if I've got post at the Burrow..."
Sirius's head continued to spin at the outrageous thought, but he looked at Ginny calmly.
“Yule Ball, eh? A dancing chap then,” he swallowed the profanities doing somersaults in his brain. “So, a Ravenclaw...”
Ginny eyed him warily, “That’s right.”
He forced an excited grin, “Splendid! Does he play Quidditch? Bet we can invite him over sometime.”
Impossible, Sirius thought. First of all, he was still a fugitive. He reckoned Michael Corner wouldn’t want to be tossing Quaffles with a man who escaped Azkaban; and second, wanted or not, he didn't think he’d ever let Harry get away with letting a girl like Ginny escape from his fingers. He didn’t let James cower away, he sure won’t let Harry either.
He heard her sigh and focused on keeping his face devoid of any inner turmoil.
“He doesn’t play Quidditch," said Ginny.
DOESN’T PLAY QUIDDI—
“Doesn’t play Quidditch?” Sirius raised an eyebrow, keeping his tone neutral. “Interesting.”
What’s she going to do with a bloke who doesn’t play bloody Quidditc—
“So what does he do?” he clears his throat, “in his spare time? Any hobbies?” He seriously should consider an acting career once his name got cleared.
Wrapping the quilt she was sitting on around her shoulders and balancing the tray of sandwiches her mother left on her hip, Ginny pursed her lips at Sirius and huffed, “Nothing that would concern you, Mr. Sirius Black. After all, what other hobbies did you have back in the old days? Other than stirring up trouble?”
She gathered the trail of her quilt with her spare hand and started walking towards the stairs, up to the bedrooms.
“Oh, come on, little red!” said Sirius exasperatedly, “What did I say? Tell me more about Michael Corner! What does he do? What sort of lot does he hang out with?”
He blanched at a sudden thought, gaping at her retreating back in horror.
“Michael Corner doesn’t hang out with Madam Pince does he?”
Ginny trudges up the stairs and doesn’t look back, but her steps progressed louder and heavier.
“If you stop saying his name like that, maybe I’ll think about answering your questions!” she growled and was out of sight.
 ----—----
  Dear Padfoot,
You were right! I did get Seeker! But only because Harry received a lifetime Quidditch ban from Umbridge. I’m sure you’ve heard. That old hag. Fred and George got banned too. I wasn’t supposed to tryout till next year, but Angelina was desperate. You should’ve seen her face. Nearly close to tears every time I see her at breakfast.
I’m sorry you can’t floo anymore. I kept everyone out of the common room the last time. Pavarti left her Herbology homework by the fire but I convinced her to pick it up in the morning instead. I also told the Creeveys that the house elves were cleaning out the common room that night. Nobody wanted to bother them and welcome a bad breakfast. I hope you got to talk to Harry enough. If that old toad didn’t barge in, I’m sure he would’ve told you more about the D.A.
He’s a really good teacher Harry. REALLY good. He reminds me a lot of Remus, the way he teaches. Did you know he can produce a corporeal Patronus? I’ve known of course, from Ron, but seeing it up close was bloody brilliant. You’d be proud. Especially since his Patronus is a stag. Didn’t you say his dad was Prongs?
He’s also seeing this girl, Cho Chang. She’s nice. Very pretty. A Ravenclaw. She plays Quidditch as well. I guess we both have a thing for Ravenclaws? She always cries though, I’ve noticed. It must be hard for her, dealing with Cedric’s death. They were a thing before he died you see. I hope she doesn’t make Harry too sad at least. He’s been looking a lot gloomy these days. Always BROODING. And don’t get me started on his temper.
Anyway, this will likely be my last letter before Christmas. They don’t bother monitoring my owls as much as they do Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s, but it’d be best if you didn’t write back till after the holidays. Hopefully I see you for Christmas. I’ve already got you a present.
Don’t go sulking around too much!
With love,
Ginny
 ----—----
 Never in her life has Ginny ever seen Harry Potter as broken and desolate as he was now, right before her eyes. That is to say she's seen quite a bit of his dismal days. But it was nothing like this. Although, of course, she knew she couldn't feel the extent of his pain, but pain she still felt; the hollow ache in her chest reverberated, first through her arms, paving way for gooseflesh to rise up to the very tips of her fingers, then down her legs and she felt her knees wobble desperately, as if they were telling her, We can carry you no longer.
With her sprained ankle and failing knees, she gripped the bed post nearest her so tightly it croaked beneath her weight. She watched as Harry did his very best to stand back helplessly and watch the healers fuss around Sirius's frail and pale body, casting stabilizing charms and fixing various droughts by the bed where he lay in the Hogwarts hospital wing.
It almost hit him.
Ginny whimpered at the memory of waking to Sirius's barking voice echo through the Department of Mysteries. Despite her busted ankle, she dragged herself up and registered Luna and Hermione passed out cold, while Ron struggled through the binding tentacles of thought wheeling out of the brain that held him captive. Neville and Harry were nowhere to be found.
"RON!" she yelled at her brother, who seemed to have finally snapped out of the laughing jinx he was in. "Hold still—"
"I HATE BRAINS!" screamed Ron. He managed to have pierced a tentacle with the tip of his wand and the bindings around his torso pulsated, as if the brain yelped in pain although no sound came out.
"GINNY, NOW!"
"Diffindo!"
The brain's tentacles weren't severed as Ginny would have hoped, but it weakened its hold on Ron most definitely that he succeeded in wiggling his way out.
"I've got it," mumbled Ron when she bent down to reach for him, "It might get you too." He finally kicked the tentacles of thought away and it trembled furiously on the cold floor, flashes of memories fluctuating.
Both siblings were panting heavily as they paused to catch their breaths. Ron's right knee jutted out in an odd angle that didn't look particularly natural. He shifted his weight to his left backside, scanned the room, and spotted Hermione lying across the room from him with her eyes wide open. His face paled.
"Hermione," whispered Ron weakly.
Ginny glanced over at her and Luna's lying forms.
"They're stunned," she said. "We need to get them back to school. We all need to get out of here."
She wouldn't have known if Ron heard her for his eyes were fixed solely on Hermione, but he gave a quick nod, "Yeah we—," his eyes suddenly darted around, searching, then he looked back at Ginny in panic.
"Where's Neville?" his eyes were filled with fear, "Where's Harry?"
A deep booming yell echoed from the open door, and Ron's face first scrunched up in confusion, then suddenly turned to a hopeful expression.
"Is that— is that Moody I hear?" his voice was almost weepy.
"Yes," said Ginny, struggling back up on one foot. "And I think I heard Sirius too."
She tried helping her brother up to his feet but to no avail. His right knee was most definitely not okay.
"I'm going to get help," she said. "Stay here and look after the others."
Ron looked like he was about to protest but swallowed the argument quickly. "Wait—" he quickly glances at Hermione then at Ginny's angry and swollen ankle, "you can barely walk."
"Compared to you I can," she said and winced as she shifted her weight. "Look after the others."
Ron swallowed painfully but nodded, his eyes finding Hermione again. No one would dare doubt Ginny's hexing skills, but as the older brother it was instinct to worry.
"Hurry back, yeah?"
Ginny stared at her youngest brother and felt her heart swell almost as much as her throbbing ankle (the pain intensifying to the point of numbness, which made it easier to ignore). People always thought it was Bill that she favored the most among her brothers, them being particularly close as the eldest and youngest. But while their closeness was unquestionable, there was one brother whom Ginny revered the most. Sheer—although closeted—admiration.
Ron always wore his heart on his sleeve, no matter how much he tried to clam it up—which Ginny admired profusely, if not envied at times. While he regularly complained under his breath about the state of poverty their family lived in, his face often falling behind his mother's back whenever he found out he'd be inheriting something of his older brothers' (like Charlie's old set of school robes instead of getting fresh, personally tailored ones from Madam Malkin's)—it was exactly this that made him all the more benign.
It was Ron who always lent Ginny his hand-me-down broom after an afternoon of spitting out tantrums all over the Burrow when her other brothers refused to let her play along, Ron who merely huffs in annoyance every time she barges in his room, plopping down on his bed as she talked his ear off—though he let her anyway; Ron who was just so selfless despite all his lamenting, never thinking twice about giving.
You're my hero, Ron, Ginny thought to herself as she gave her brother a nimble nod.
"Wand out," she cautioned him, and he snorted.
"I'll give those Death Eaters a Bat-Bogey hex in your honor."
Ginny had to swallow back her tears. She didn't know why she was getting emotional at this point. Perhaps it was the thought of death not very far from where they stood, as Death Eaters swarmed the Ministry. She pointed her wand to his knees to distract him from the glassy sheen forming in her eyes.
"Ferula."
Bandages spun up Ron's leg, strapping it tightly to a splint. He winced as they secured themselves and then he heaved a grateful sigh. "Thanks. Hold out yours."
Ankle patched and throbbing dulled to a minimum, Ginny limped out of the Brain Room, wand out and ready.
If Sirius and the others are here, we'll be alright, she thought, fighting down the growing panic that if the Death Eaters didn't get to him first, the Ministry would capture him instantly. He was, after all, still a mass murderer on the lose. She refused to think about Harry, who was god-knows-where, probably being impulsive and angry and careless with a helpless Neville on his toes.
Ginny evaded all abhorrent thoughts and swiped traitorous tears from her cheeks angrily.
He has to be okay. They all have to be.
She headed straight to the only other door still open, the one through which the Death Eaters themselves had come. Gripping the frame tightly as she fought through the pain on her ankle, she saw—to her horror—Mad-Eye lying on his side in the middle of the room by the dais, bleeding from the head, his magic eye spinning across the floor near a paralyzed Dolohov; Kingsley was swaying across her field of vision, battling with a now mask-less Rookwood, and she saw Remus, who had successfully disarmed Lucius Malfoy.
Her eyes scanned the room in panic, but was suddenly swept with utmost relief at the sight of Harry and Neville hobbling up the stone steps towards her.
Ginny stopped the scream from bubbling out of her throat, noticing the glass spherical prophecy tightly clutched by Neville's hand, not wanting to draw attention to them any further.
“Come on!” she heard Harry cry desperately, hauling at Neville’s robes. “Just try and push with your legs —”
Something hot like liquid heat was suddenly melting down Ginny's ankle. She looked down to see that the bandages Ron had given her were glowing a deep purple. It's not the bandages, she realized, it's my foot— the glowing stopped.
What the—
"It won't last, Ms. Weasley, but it'll do long enough."
Ginny turned, wand raised, to see Albus Dumbledore standing behind her, his own wand equally aloft, his face white and furious. She felt a kind of electric charge surge through every particle of her body—they were saved.
"Professor," she stammered, "I—"
"Mr. Longbottom is in need of your assistance, dear one," Dumbledore said with no preamble. "Go. The spell on your ankle won't last long."
She wasted no time.
Running down the stone steps, she ran into Neville, clutched him by the arm, and he almost sagged on top of her completely if it weren't for Harry holding him up.
"Ginny!" Harry looked at her in panic. "Where's Ron?"
"He's fine," she panted, hitching one of Neville's arms over her shoulders, "They're all fine. Harry, listen. Dumbledo—"
Announcing his presence was futile, she realized, as screams of fury suddenly rang throughout the chamber.
All three of them turned back to see one of the Death Eaters running for it, scrabbling like a monkey up the stone steps opposite. Dumbledore’s spell pulled him back as easily and effortlessly as though he had hooked him with an invisible line.
Only one couple were still battling, apparently unaware of the new arrival. Ginny saw Sirius duck Bellatrix’s jet of red light: He was laughing at her. “Come on, you can do better than that!” he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.
The second jet of light barely missed his head. Sirius staggered backwards in shock. Ginny saw Bellatrix's face erupt into a triumphant smile as she raised her wand, pointing straight for his chest—
She heard Harry yell to her right but she had no more time to think, adrenaline and desperation pumping through her veins. She grabbed the prophecy from Neville who's grip had slackened in fright. This is way lighter than a Quaffle, a voice spoke in the back of her head as she let go of Neville, though unaware of doing so, shifted her weight back for a split second and released the glass orb with all her might, aiming for the space between Sirius and the tip of Bellatrix's wand.
"Avada Kedavra!"
It almost hit him
The jet of green light flashed through Ginny's memory, colliding with the the spherical orb of the prophecy instead of Sirius's chest, although its force was so strong that it knocked him off his feet, he passed out cold on the Death Chamber floor....
"Ginerva? Ginerva, dear, I told you to lie back down— Oh, my sweet," Madam Pomfrey's voice shook her out of her painful daze. She was back in the hospital wing, hand numb from clutching the bed post so tightly; the pain from her ankle was making her dizzy that she didn't realize the tears pouring out of her eyes.
"Is," she sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve messily, "is he going to be—"
"The healers are doing everything they can," Madam Pomfrey murmured quietly although her face was grim. "Let me have a look at your—"
"I'm okay," said Ginny stubbornly. She wouldn't move an inch farther away from Harry and Sirius than she already was.
"Ginny, I swear if you don't let Madam Pomfrey look at your leg I'll hex you myself," she heard Ron growl, although tiredly, from the bed behind her. "There's nothing you can do just lie back down."
Ginny gritted her teach so hard they almost hurt as much as everything else. She stared at Sirius's lying form helplessly from afar, then shifted her eyes back to Harry who now had a tired-looking Remus guarding him from shaking his godfather awake.
She gave a defeated sigh and let the school matron lead her to bed, sleep consuming her instantly no matter how hard she fought it.
 ----—----
 It's been almost a week. A week. And Sirius still hasn't woken.
Ginny was finally discharged after four days; Madam Pomfrey casted final charms to fully mend her ankle and prescribed her with the Potion for Dreamless Sleep to help her with her shock and nightmares.
Ron and Neville had to stay for two more nights, and Hermione for another week—the curse Dolohov had used on her, though less effective than it would have been had he been able to say the incantation aloud (Hermione had cast a Silencing Charm on him before he attacked), had nevertheless caused, in Madam Pomfrey’s words, “quite enough damage to be going on with.” Hermione was having to take ten different types of potion every day and although she was improving greatly, was already bored with the hospital wing.
This gave Ginny every excuse to drop by everyday without fail. She brought everyone Honeydukes sweets, some pastries from Dobby, and fresh flowers for Sirius's bedside. She's also piled his stash of Pumpkin Pasties so much that she heard one of the healers attending to him scoff in disdain.
"If the rebound curse won't kill him, those sweets will, deary," said the healer in disapproval.
But Ginny didn't care, of course, she merely hid the stash under his bed, away from prying eyes. He would thank her when he woke up. For a laugh (more for her than anyone, really), she also hoarded volumes of The Quibbler from Luna, specifically the editions flooded with speculations of Sirius being the innocent singing sensation Stubby Boardman, lead of the band The Hobogoblins.
"You have to wake up now," she told his sleeping form, making sure to sound as miffed as she possibly could. Dumbledore said that talking to him might help, although she suspected he only said so for Ginny's sake. She sat on the edge of his bed one Hogsmeade morning. She barely went anywhere besides the hospital wing these days—despite Dean Thomas's efforts in coaxing her a trip to the Three Broomsticks. "You haven't even seen me play Seeker, Stubby, what happens when your godson takes it back next term?"
But she was only met with Sirius's steady breathing. Which was a good thing, at least is what the healers from St. Mungo's said. The collision that the Killing Curse and the prophecy made was enough to block the curse's intentions, but was able to emit some kind of stunning aftermath, knocking Sirius out cold. She remembered when they all thought him dead, Harry shaking with fury as he dashed out of the Death Chamber after Bellatrix Lestrange.
"You should've seen him, Stubby," she whispered, her eyes roaming all over Sirius's pale, gaunt face. "He looked like he would've killed for you."
She thought she saw a hitch in his breathing, a change so subtle that she held her own. But the following breaths after that were as steady as it had bin, making her convince herself it was only her hopeful imagination.
"Ginny?"
She was so focused on studying Sirius's breathing that she didn't hear privacy curtain open behind her.
Harry Potter, skinny, pale, and hair mussed up as ever, stood awkwardly by the foot of his godfather's bed, his hands holding a bowl of what smelled like onion soup with sides of sliced bread. His glasses were askew and misty from the spring wind and he looked like he just shimmied out of bed and put on the first jumper he saw, because he was wearing one with a big 'R' on his chest.
It was then that Ginny realized that she hasn't seen much of Sirius's godson in the long period that he's been lying in the hospital wing. Every time she visited, even when the others were still around, Harry would've already left to god-knows-where, or she would have had classes and missed running into him. Even sightings in the common room or at the Great Hall were rare.
It's not as if you've been avoiding him, Ginny thought to herself as she stood up to leave, it's just bad timing is all.
"Harry," she smiled at him and nodded at his bowl of soup, "That for the dog?"
He gave out a laugh that made her insides thump erratically. She hasn't seen a smile on his face for so long and she's missed it terribly.
"Yeah," he said with a small smile, and looked at Sirius. "Looks like he's not hungry still."
His smile still held its place but his eyes were almost cheerless.
Crossing her arms dramatically, Ginny turned to glare at the benumbed form before them, "Hear that, Stubby? Your godson's been bringing you breakfast and this is how you repay him?"
Again, they were met with silence and she heard Harry chuckle, "Maybe that'll work," he said, "I've been spitting praises all over to try to get him to wake."
She rolled her eyes, "Don't spoil him," she warned although she smiled fondly down at Sirius, "he might be enjoying it too much."
Harry let out a tiny laugh once again, making her warm all over. She loved seeing him not brooding. It was a rare sight this term, and now that Umbridge was gone, she hoped she'd see more of it.
"Well," she started as she scanned the floor for her book bag, "I'll leave you with the rascal then—"
"You don't have to leave," said Harry and she looked up at him to meet his alarmed gaze. "Really, Ginny I—," he stammered, "you don't have to go."
Ginny stared at him worryingly, "Are you sure? You don't have any secrets to talk about?"
He chuckled, "Yes. I mean no. No—we— I have no secrets," he was surely flushing now, and Ginny sniggered.
"Well alright then," she said, hoisting herself back up on the edge of Sirius's bed. "Is that onion soup I smell? Haven’t had breakfast."
Harry sighed with relief and rounded the bed, grabbing two spoons from his godfather's bedside drawer and sagged down the chair beside Ginny's legs. They sipped the onion soup in silence for a few minutes before Harry cleared his throat and glanced up at her.
"I—," his face was red and she was sure it was because of the soup, "I never got to thank you."
Ginny raised her eyebrows at him questioningly before slurping loudly from her spoon. Harry burst out laughing.
She grinned cheekily at him, legs swinging back and forth on the edge of the bed, "What for?"
He shook his head, "What do you mean 'what for?' You saved Sirius."
It was Ginny’s turn to look embarrassed. Seeing as this was the first time they were actually talking about what happened at the Ministry (the first time talking at all after the Ministry), the subject of the prophecy that Ginny so careless sent flying (quite literally) was never mentioned, not even by the others. She didn't think anybody even knew about it—apart from Harry and Neville and other members of the Order present in the Death Chamber. She had little thought for it, all her worries focused on her friends and her brother getting better.
"Barely," replied Ginny, shrugging nonchalantly at the boy in front of her. "To be honest, I could've thrown something more durable," Harry laughed at this, "but balls are the only thing I'm good at aiming with and that was the closest thing." She frowned after a thought, "To be honest, I wasn't thinking at all."
Harry shook his head again and looked at her with something she could've described as awe, "Well I'm glad you didn't think," he said and a hint of despair flashed in his eyes, although quickly appeased. "I don't even want to think about what would've if you did."
They were quiet for a moment, both now focused on Sirius's rhythmic breathing. Ginny chanced a deceitful glance at the boy she so perplexingly pined for for so long. She couldn't deny that her fourth year in Hogwarts drastically changed now that Harry was more to her than just her brother's best friend. She could actually call him her friend. She couldn't believe it took her this long to woman up and finally start talking around him, realizing how much of an awkward bloke he was.
Well, I won't miss out on you anymore, Harry Potter.
She smiled wistfully at the fact that his hair was as unkept as ever, not realizing that her own hand was reaching out in a foolish attempt to tame it...
"Hey, I was thinking!"
Ginny gave a startled jump, Harry's voice slicing through her shameful haze, and reared back her hand so fast that her elbow hit Sirius's knee.
"OW," she yelped, clutching her joint closely.
"Wha— are you okay?"
"What in the—what is this man made of? Steel?" She rubbed her elbow, wincing, and hoped Harry took no notice of her mortifying intentions.
He merely laughed, "No, I don't reckon Sirius is much of a Superman."
"A super what?"
His eyes were full of amusement as he gazed a Ginny's disgruntled face. "Never mind. Listen, what do you think about trying out for Chaser next year?"
She blinked at him.
"Chaser?"
Harry blushed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Yeah I mean—er—I know you're Seeker now," Ginny was smirking now, "but uh, you have really good aim and— well, that's not saying you're not a good Seeker already. I mean— I don't even know if next year's Captain will take me back in if—"
Before Ginny could stop herself, she grabbed a piece of uneaten bread from the meal they just shared and flicked it straight for Harry's face.
It hit him square in between his eyebrows, nudging his round glasses even more askew.
His expression was priceless.
She laughed boisterously at his stunned look. He was gawking at her.
"That aim good enough for you, Potter?"
It took him a beat to recover, a wide playful grin spreading across his face. "Pretty good, Weasley," he admitted, then tapped on his forehead mockingly, "Could definitely use some practice though, you missed the scar."
Nothing but absurd and ridiculous banter issued after that, their conversation flowing with so much ease, that Ginny swore to herself she would never allow her foolish feelings to keep her from Harry ever again.
And if she wasn't so enamored by his breath-taking laughter, she might have noticed the impish ghost of a smirk from the patient lying on the bed.
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morganaspendragonss · 4 years ago
Text
someday, i’ll breathe again
prompted by @mimierose, idea by @theworld-is-out-there. thanks guys, so sorry it took me so long to write! i hope you both like it!
A shout from above grabs their attention, followed by the pounding of feet coming down the stairs towards them. TK’s able to shove Mateo out of the way, but the guy forcefully collides with him as he goes past, his momentum knocking TK off balance and sending him tumbling down the stairs to the landing below.
He lands hard, stars exploding in his vision, the pain in his head masking the sharp sting in his arm.
ao3 | 2.1k | warning for references to needles and past addiction - this is not a relapse fic
The ambulance arrives at the scene just behind the truck, and TK grins when he climbs out, spotting Carlos already deep in conversation with his dad. Nancy hits him as she walks past, any initial reservations she’d had about him joining their team long since forgotten.
“Head out of the bedroom, Strand,” she says, rolling her eyes at his show of offence. 
“I’ll have you know my head wasn’t even close to the bedroom,” he protests, following her to the back of the ambulance. It’s not even a lie; he’d actually just been thinking about how much he was looking forward to their movie night later. They haven’t spent much time together properly in a while, shifts rarely lining up, both of them too tired to do much more than sleep when they do.
Becoming a paramedic has meant that some of the danger has gone out of TK’s job, but the workload has increased more than he realised it would. Medical get far more calls than fire in a day, and much as TK loves it, he can’t deny the bone-deep exhaustion at the end of most shifts.
He wouldn’t trade it, though, not for the world.
Nancy sends him a withering look, but she doesn’t get a chance to respond before Tommy’s striding back over to them, having consulted with his dad.
“What are we looking at, Cap?” he asks.
“PD needs some help clearing the building,” she responds. “It’s due to be demolished in a couple of weeks, but there have been some reports of squatters, gangs, local kids, hanging around. They want to make sure everyone’s out, and they want medical on standby just in case. Ordinarily, we’d wait out here, as you know, but Captain Strand and I have agreed that it would be more efficient and useful to have you inside. There might be people in there who don’t have the time to wait to be carried out.”
TK grimaces, hearing Tommy’s implications loud and clear. Her gaze flicks over to him, but she doesn’t comment, and TK tries to pull himself together as she continues laying out the plan.
“We’ll be going in in teams of three - two firefighters, one paramedic. TK, you’re with Judd and Mateo; Nancy, you’re with Marjan and Paul. Captain Strand and I will be waiting out here - keep us updated.”
“Yes, Cap.”
He and Nancy nod, turning to gather supplies into their medical bags. They work silently and efficiently; TK had been surprised by how easy it was to fall into a natural rhythm with his new team, but it feels normal now, like he’s been doing it forever.
Tommy takes his arm before they join the others, pulling him to one side. “You good to do this, Strand?” she asks, voice firm but caring. TK appreciates the thought - he’d told her about his history during his interview in case she wanted to think twice about hiring him - but he knows that he can do this.
He nods, adjusting the strap on his bag. “Yes. I’m good, Cap.”
She smiles. “Good. Now, go, and both of you be safe.”
TK jogs over to the others, arriving just in time to hear Nancy bemoaning him and his distinct lack of driving skill to Marjan.
“That’s so rude, Gillian,” he protests. “I’ll have you know I used to navigate New York traffic and never once got in an accident.”
“And yet you can’t take the ambulance more than five yards without threatening to crash it.”
“I’m surprised he can get it that far,” Judd puts in, which TK thinks is wholly unnecessary. It’s not his fault that the firetruck is totally unmaneuverable, or that the ambulance is only barely better. 
He opens his mouth to tell Judd this, but his dad chooses this moment to call them to attention, so he’s forced to settle for a glare directed at the back of Judd’s head.
“You’ll take alternating floors,” Owen tells them. “Judd, Mateo, TK - start on the ground, work your way up through the even numbered levels. Paul, Marjan, Nancy - the same, starting on one and doing the odd floors. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Cap.”
“Good.” Owen looks round at them all, eyes seeming to linger on TK for the briefest second longer. “The structure seems stable, but stay alert. We don’t know what you’re gonna find in there, and I’d like to avoid any injuries. Police will be around for back up if you need them. Good luck.”
They spring into action, heading towards the building as a unit, and TK has to admit that he’s missed this. Doing rescues with the team, adrenaline pumping through his veins, never quite sure what’s going to happen from one moment to the next. 
He sticks to the back of their little group, letting Judd and Mateo go ahead of him as they sweep the ground floor. There’s no-one there so they move onto the next level, TK’s nose wrinkling as the smell gets worse the higher up they go. They work without speaking, for the most part, though judging by the numerous backward glances Mateo keeps sending him, TK suspects that it won’t last.
Sure enough, as they’re moving from the fourth floor to the sixth - their last but one target - Mateo falls into step with him.
“It’s been weird since you became a paramedic.”
Ahead of them, Judd groans. “Here we go again.”
“What?” Mateo protests. “It has.”
TK looks between them, curious. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just weird that you’re not on call with us anymore,” he says, shrugging.
“I am literally on call with you right now, Mateo.”
“Yeah, but not with us,” Mateo sighs. “And it’s not like you’re at every call, and you don’t do rescues, and you ride in the ambulance now. I know that this is what you want to do, and that’s really cool, seriously, but it’s just -”
“Weird,” TK finishes, laughing a little. He nudges Mateo with his shoulder. “I get it. It’s been weird for me, too.”
“Really?” He seems surprised, looking over at TK with wide eyes. TK sends him a wry smile.
“Really,” he says. “But -”
A shout from above grabs their attention, followed by the pounding of feet coming down the stairs towards them. The guy - a squatter, more than likely - freezes when he catches sight of them, but only briefly, before continuing to barrel down to them. TK’s able to shove Mateo out of the way, but the guy forcefully collides with him as he goes past, his momentum knocking TK off balance and sending him tumbling down the stairs to the landing below.
He groans, vision swimming as he attempts to push himself upright. His bag is lying a couple of feet away, contents spilling everywhere, and the thought crosses his mind that Captain Vega’s going to be pissed if he loses anything. He tries to get to his feet to collect it all, but the pounding in his head quickly informs him that’s not happening any time soon. 
Judd and Mateo’s faces appear in front of him, their mouths moving but no words coming out. Or… That’s not right. TK focuses as best he can, trying to blink some of the haziness from his mind.
Eventually, their voices reach him, as though underwater. “You with us, brother?” Judd asks, worry evident in his tone.
TK nods, then instantly regrets it as another wave of dizziness washes over him. Hands grasp his shoulders, pulling him up to rest against the wall, and it’s then that he notices a sharp sting in his right arm. He must have cut it on something, which isn’t ideal, given how dirty everything is here.
“Alright,” Judd says, his voice clearer this time. “I’m gonna need you to focus up for me, okay? You’re the paramedic here; you’ve gotta tell us what to do.”
TK huffs a small laugh, closing his eyes and taking a moment to clear the fuzz in his brain. “Definitely have a concussion,” he mutters. “Must have hit my head on the way down.”
He hasn’t opened his eyes yet, but he can feel Judd’s eye roll. “Yeah, no shit. It don’t look too bad, though; you’ve got a bit of a scrape on your cheek, but it seems fine. Hurt anywhere else?”
TK hums, doing a mental check. His entire body aches in some capacity, and he’s probably going to be bruised as hell tomorrow, but his cut is the only other injury he can detect. “Arm,” he says. “Think I cut it on something. Glass, maybe?”
Judd pushes his sleeve up, then sucks in a sharp breath. “Aw, shit, kid,” he murmurs, and TK gets the distinct impression he wasn’t meant to hear that. “Probie, let the captains know? Then go join the others; tell them they’ll have to finish the rest of the building themselves.”
TK frowns, forcing his eyes open. Mateo’s moved too far away for him to hear whatever he’s radioing in, so he turns to Judd instead, panic flaring at the pained look in his eyes. “What? What’s going on?”
Judd hesitates. “That wasn’t, um. That wasn’t glass you landed on, kid.” He shifts, carefully picking something up from the floor, pursing his lips before holding it up for TK to see.
A needle.
All the air feels like it’s sucked out of the room, a band tightening around his chest as his eyes blow wide, fixating on the object in front of him. His heart is racing and his thoughts are scrambled in a way that has nothing to do with the concussion because he just landed on a needle, oh god.
And TK had never been one for any of that stuff, not like some of his friends at the time were, but sober is sober, and he can’t lose that, he can’t, he won’t -
“You haven’t, okay? Just breathe, brother, that’s it. Breathe.”
Judd’s words reach him from far away. TK wants to comply, but his body doesn’t feel like his own, and his shaking fingers scrabble frantically at his uniform collar, the choking sensation only getting worse. A distant noise lets him know that Judd is still talking, and TK tries to latch onto that, leaning into the solid and grounding presence at his side.
Slowly, the panic starts to subside. He still feels on edge, weak and shaky, but he can breathe again, which counts for something.
“Sorry,” he gasps out when he’s able.
Judd’s mouth twists into a grimace. “None of that, now. You okay?”
TK nods, though he doubts it’s very convincing. “I will be,” he amends. “Give me a minute.”
At that moment, Judd’s radio crackles to life. “Ryder, what’s your status?” his dad’s voice says, very carefully professional.
Judd looks over to him. “Think you can stand?”
At TK’s nod, he grasps his radio. “Me and TK are on our way out, Cap,” he reports. ���Be with you in a few.”
“Copy that.”
TK groans, taking a shaking breath before planting his hands on the floor, attempting to heave himself upright. He makes it to a half-crouch before his balance gives out, and it’s only Judd’s reflexes that save him from face planting the ground again.
“Jesus, TK,” Judd sighs. “Let me help you.”
His tone leaves no room for argument - not that TK could put up much of a fight at the moment if he tried. He leans his weight on Judd, letting him do most of the work to get them down the stairs and out of the building.
“Sorry for freaking out on you,” he murmurs. “I just…”
“I know, kid,” Judd says softly. “You’re alright, though.”
TK doesn’t say anything, not entirely convinced that Judd is right, but comforted by the sentiment anyway. It’s not until they’re nearing the ground floor that he realises something else, and it’s almost enough to make him want to turn back.
“This is going to be so embarrassing.”
Judd frowns. “What?”
He points between his head and his arm with his good hand. “I’m going to have to go to hospital to get these checked out.” He sighs. “A paramedic needing a ride in his own ambulance. I’m never going to live this down.”
Judd laughs, long and loud, and it’s enough to make a smile tug at TK’s own lips. “You’re something else, kid,” he says, gently ruffling TK’s hair.
TK grumbles and bats him away, but his heart isn’t in it. He’s never been more thankful for Judd, truth be told, and he knows he can trust him to understand. And as they head outside, TK starts to believe that maybe Judd was right after all. 
They’ll be alright, in the end.
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nooneelsecomesclose17 · 3 years ago
Text
Go to the ends of the earth for you - Part 1
I truly have no idea where all this writing is coming from, and I have no willpower to actually sit on a fic until it's finished before posting, so enjoy.
I've tried to research but I'm probably WAY off here with any charges etc but soap magic...just enjoy it and don't take much notice of reality!
(AO3 link)
“Well it’s not quite that simple.” Ethan pipes up and Aaron spots a tiny roll of his eyes as he looks from Vic to Cain. “From what I’ve been told, you did actually hit this Lee Posner, but I don’t think it should’ve been classed as GBH with intent originally, which automatically became a murder charge.”
“Wait, are you saying Wise trumped up the charges on purpose? Why?” He reaches for Robert’s hand again, he sounds completely bewildered and he doesn’t blame him, his own head is spinning.
“Not exactly. What I’m saying is, all of his convictions are now in doubt. We’re talking cases going back years.” That has him freezing, gripping Robert’s hand even tighter because if they were looking at everything then that meant…He stops himself from going down that road, there was nothing they could do, Gordon was dead, it was over. “It means there’s a case for your charge to be reduced to involuntary manslaughter, or more technically subjectively reckless manslaughter because it can be argued that you didn’t actually intend to kill him, and given the harassment you were subjected to. I don’t know why your last solicitor didn’t make more of that really.” Aaron can’t help raising an eyebrow at that. “Which would obviously carry a much lighter sentence than a murder charge. I think, even with the absconding we could get a sentence of eighteen months to two years, likely only half of which would be custodial.”
Aaron’s not sure how long they’d been there, not speaking, the only sound was Seb’s occasional giggles as he watched a cartoon. Robert’s standing at the window staring out over their garden and he’s in the chair by the fireplace watching.
“Robert, talk to me.”
“I don’t know what to say.” He’d barely said a word since Ethan had spoken. It had been left to Aaron to convince them to leave them to it, give them some time alone. Vic had protested, Cain had complained about the cold, and in the end he’d all but shoved them out the door. Only Ethan had nodded an understanding and Aaron was glad of it. He still had no real idea who the guy was but he seemed alright. He knew Vic wouldn’t stay away that long and still he and Robert hadn’t spoken. “It doesn’t feel real.”
“We need to decide what to do though, because I know your sister and she’s going to be banging the door down soon enough.”
“You want to go home don’t you?”
He doesn’t answer straight away because honestly he doesn’t know. Going home means Robert going to prison, albeit for a much shorter time. It means seeing his family again, dealing with all that stress. But it also means Robert won’t be classed as a murderer any more, it means they can go where they like, when they like without worrying about what’s round the next corner. It means they can have Seb back in their lives.
“Aaron? It’s ok if you do.” Finally he turns round.
“What do you want?” A shrug is all he gets. “I can’t make this decision alone Robert, we both have to agree on this. What are you thinking? I’m not going to get mad or ‘owt, but I need to know.”
“I don’t…” He perches on the arm of the sofa, hand running through Seb’s hair. “I don’t know that I want to go back to the village. I’m always going to be the Robert Sugden who killed someone, the Robert Sugden who cheated, there’s too much history and not much of it good.”
“Ok, so we find somewhere else.”
“Just like that?” He nods. It’s simple enough to him. “I’ll still go inside.”
“Yeah.” The thought of it alone leaves him cold. “You will, but it could be just a year Rob, maybe less with a great barrister. We were expecting that anyway weren’t we? And I’ll be there, every week, I promise.”
“What if…what if they decide it’s murder anyway? I did kill him, DS Wise didn’t lie about that?”
“I don’t think Cain would’ve come to us with this if he wasn’t sure. That Ethan seems to know what he’s talking about. If we go back then we just have to take a big leap of faith. But if you don’t think you can do it then we’ll just stay where we are.”
“Without him?” He nods at Seb. He was the major sticking point. It was clear that neither of them was truly bothered about going back to Emmerdale, but staying meant Seb wouldn’t be with them, he’d have to go back to Vic.
“How are you…I mean about Rebecca?” He’d not said a word when Vic had told him about the accident, how she’d been called by social services looking for next of kin for Seb.
“I…everything I didn’t want for him is happening. I let him down, left him behind, he’s lost his Mum…how did this happen Aaron? It was all going to be so different for him.”
“You can’t make life perfect Robert, all you can do is deal with what comes along. He’s loved, he’s safe and he looks fairly happy to me. Surely that’s the main thing.”
“Maybe. Doesn’t help us decide what to do though, does it?”
“Talk to Ethan again, just you and him, no interference from anyone. Find out how sure he is about all this, and then whatever you decide is what we do.” He knew already, he knew Robert wouldn’t leave his son again, and there was nothing tying them to the village anymore, they could go where they pleased, just like they could now he supposed, but this way they’d be together. He just needed Robert to come to that realisation himself.
—————
“Ready?” He puts the key into the ignition, looking over at his husband. All he gets is a nod. “Right then.”
They’d decided to go home, like he’d known they would. Robert hadn’t wanted Seb living with Vic, he wanted him with them. He’d always be grateful for her taking him in when she had her own newborn to cope with, but he couldn’t leave him without his Daddies any longer.
“You know I won’t get bail don’t you?”
“Yeah. Like Ethan said though they want all this sorted so they’ll get to you pretty quick. Besides one of the advantages of remand is I can come and see you every day.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Besides I’ll be glad to get out of the village won’t I? By the time you get out I’ll have everything sorted and then we can go where we like. Can even come back here if you want.”
“You’d want that?”
“Sure. Seb would love it here, he could grow up bilingual and all.”
“That’d be handy seeing as your French ends up getting us into trouble.” Their laughter fills the car for a few moments before Robert sobers. “We’re really doing this, I’m really handing myself in?”
“Looks like it. Ethan’s going to meet us at the train and go with you, and I’ll carry on back to the village.” They’d been over and over it. He’d wanted to go with him and Ethan but as Robert reasoned there was little point, he wouldn’t be able to see him once he was arrested. All he could do was go back and wait by the phone. “I’ll book in at the B&B.”
“You could go to Mill, you own half of it.” Robert tells him as they head out onto the main road, the cottage disappearing from sight in the rear view mirror.
“No. I don’t want to go there now. It’s not home anymore. Paddy saw to that.”
“Are you going to see him again?” Robert sounded concerned and he couldn’t blame him.
“I doubt I’ll have a choice. No doubt Mum will be round as soon as she knows I’m there. Don’t worry, I can handle him. All I’m interested in is seeing Seb, getting all that sorted, and visiting you. Everything else can wait.”
“I wish I was coming back with you. I don’t like you being there alone.”
“Like I told you when we left, getting arrested for murdering Paddy isn’t going to help our situation is it. I’m done Robert, I’ve seen now, I know what was going on and that’s it, it’s not happening anymore. I’ll be fine.”
“Hmm.” He looks over, then pulls the car into a lay-by.
“Listen to me, when you’re in there, I don’t want you worrying about me, ok? I need you to concentrate on yourself, getting yourself through it, keeping safe and out of trouble.” Robert nods. “We’re going to get through this, and then it’s just going to be you and me, and Seb and we’re going to live our best lives. Trust me.”
“I always have.”
The rest of the drive is quiet, only his chatter about nothing in particular breaking the silence, trying his best to keep Robert’s mind off everything that’s coming. He’s relieved when Robert falls asleep, needing the peace just as he had when they were making the reverse journey. This felt much harder, going home, leaving Robert for who knew how long. He had to be strong, to not let Robert see how worried he was. For so long it had been Robert who was the strong one, the one he knew he could always lean on, even when Robert himself needed someone. This last year he’d been the strong one, trying to keep them both together and he just had to do that a little while longer.
————
“How much longer?” Robert’s pacing and driving Aaron slightly crazy. They were parked up near the station, waiting for Ethan.
“Come here.” He holds a hand out to him, waiting until he relented and sat beside him on the bonnet of the car. “He’ll be here.”
“I just want it over with.”
“I know. He text me, he’s nearly here, and he’s set up a meeting with one of his colleagues so we can get the ball rolling on Seb coming home to us.”
“Don’t bring him. To prison. I don’t want him to see me in there.”
“Ok.” It wasn’t as if Aaron wanted to take Seb into that place either. “But don’t you go getting any ideas about cutting off my visits. I know you, you’ll get some noble idea in your head, but don’t. I’m going to be there as much as I can, like I told you.”
“I promise.” He looks round, seeing a car pull in next to them, recognising Ethan in the driver’s seat. “Well…”
Now the moment is here, Aaron doesn’t want him to go, wants to hold onto him as long as he can.
“Sooner you go, sooner you’re home, right?” He gets up, relieved Ethan’s staying in the car, giving them some time. “Call me, the minute you can.”
“I will.” He can’t help it, steps closer, holding onto both his hands, foreheads touching, savouring every moment. “I love you so much.”
“Love you too.” He still doesn’t move, not until he hears a car door open and Ethan’s quiet cough behind him. “You better go.”
“I could come through with you.”
“If they stop you it’s better you’re with a solicitor. It’ll be just as hard to leave wherever we are.” He kisses him then, trying to commit the feel of him to memory, hoping it won’t be that long before he comes home. “Go on. I’ll see you soon.”
He watches him go, eyes locked with his until the car has turned and he can’t see his face any longer. Only then does he get back into his own car.
———-
The village looks exactly the same as he pulls to a stop outside the B&B. It’s mid afternoon and there are people milling around although he doesn’t recognise them. He can see Vic’s car outside the house and he decides to go over later, to see Seb, but first he wants to get inside the B&B without running into anyone he knows.
“Well, well, well, look who the cat dragged in.” He can just manage a tired smile when he hears his Gran’s voice. “The proverbial black sheep.”
“I’m too tired for a lecture Gran.”
“No lectures here love. You’re not the only one on the naughty list this year. Now, I guess you’re after a room?” He nods. “Just you?”
“Yeah.” He tries really hard but he can’t help but check his phone again. It’s on it’s loudest setting along with vibrate, he doesn’t want to miss a call, but there’s nothing. “I don’t know how long for.”
“Here you go, number five. Go on, I’ll bring you up a nice hot cuppa. You look like you need it.”
He all but collapses in the chair when he gets to the room, worn out and worried. It’s the first time since he first came to the village that he feels as though he has nowhere to go. Now he’s here, it’s harder than he thought. Knowing his family are right there and could come up to him at any time isn’t at all comforting. He knows he has Cain to go to for help, but other than that he’s not sure who to turn to.
Just as there’s a knock on the door his phone rings. Grabbing it he answers as he opens the door to his Gran.
“Hello?”
“Hi.” Robert’s quiet and he holds the phone closer as if that will make him closer to him.
“Robert. You ok?”
“Yeah. Are you home?”
“Just now. Gran’s just brought me a cuppa. Where are you?”
“Still at the station. They’re moving me soon I think, I don’t…I don’t know if I can do this Aaron.”
“Yeah you can. You’re stronger than you think you are Rob, and you’ve got me, and you’ve got Seb and we love you. We’ll be right here, whether you like it or not.” He wipes his tears away with his sleeve, sensing his Gran sitting beside him. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“I know. I have to go.”
“Yeah. Get Ethan to let me know where you are and I’ll come and visit as soon as I can…You know.”
“I know.” He’s barely hung up when his Gran is gathering him up and holding him as the tears he’s been holding in since they made the decision to come back finally fall.
“Come on now love, this isn’t going to help him.”
“I know.” It was just everything finally getting too much, he’d held it all together until he knew Robert was as safe as he could be and now he couldn’t do it any longer.
“Come on, drink up and then go over and see that little boy of yours.”
“I don’t know. I’m not really up to running into Mum, or Liv, or Paddy, not yet. Might just stay here tonight.”
“Wallowing isn’t going to help. I know for a fact that your Mum has taken your little sister into Hotten and Paddy was complaining of a day full of calls this morning so you should be just fine. Liv’s at college.”
“Sister? I thought…”
“We all did love. Bit of a surprise. They called her Eve, bonny little thing she is too. Didn’t Cain tell you?”
“I didn’t ask. Last time I text Mum she didn’t reply so…” He’d taken it to mean she’d sided with Paddy, wasn’t surprised. How often in the past had she sided with anyone but him. “She’s…she’s ok right?”
“Perfect. I’m babysitting tomorrow in fact so I’ll introduce you.” That makes him smile and he nods. “Now, like I said, go see that little boy of yours. You can’t do anything for Robert right now, it’s time to take care of yourself.”
———-
He’s just leaving Keeper’s when he sees Ethan’s car and he jogs over. An evening with Seb had been just what he needed and he’d only left when he’d put him to bed.
“Ethan! Do you know where he is? Can I visit?” He realises he’s being a bit over the top when he opens the car door for him. “Sorry. I…spoke to Robert. Was he ok when you left?”
“He’s ok. He’s been moved to Hotten remand centre, and he should get a court date in a few days. You can visit tomorrow.”
“Thank you, for everything…and it’s like you said? Involuntary manslaughter?”
“The prosecution are willing to go with that charge. Like I said before they want all this to go away. Given Robert’s lack of previous convictions, the mitigating circumstances, the fact he’s not a threat to the wider community and his guilty plea, I’m pretty confident. Try not to worry.”
“Why are you helping us? You don’t even know us.”
“I won’t lie, this kind of case for a relatively new solicitor, it’ll give me a leg up. Mostly it was because Victoria wouldn’t let me rest until I did.”
“That sounds about right. Well, whatever the reason, thank you. You don’t know how much this means. I owe you.”
“Well I don’t do this for free.” He laughs, he likes him. “But you can always buy me a drink if we happen to meet in the pub.”
“I’m not sure you should have to pay for a drink again for doing this. Thanks again.”
“Anytime.”
He looks up at the pub when Ethan’s gone, knows it’s inevitable he’ll have to go in at some point but he’s not ready. The whole place feels alien to him now, their little sanctuary in France feels so far away and Robert feels even further.
He takes one more look before turning away and going back to the B&B. It can wait. Now he just wants to get through his first night without Robert.
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even-after-a-millennia · 4 years ago
Text
to drown and delight in his eyes
Aka 5 times that Joe drew Nicky through history and one time that Nile did too.  This fic is for @hottopicmonk for the 2020 Old Guard Gift Exchange @theoldguardevents hosted! Some of the topics they were interested in were kaysanova, found family, Joe and Nile being art bff’s, history, romance, and fluff.  This has got all that and more!  Happy Holidays!
You can read it below or over on my ao3 here.
There was a man in Yusuf’s dreams.  
Unfortunately, he existed in real life as well.  Yusuf realized this on the battlefield, as he met the man’s multi-hued eyes, narrowed with concentration and hatred.  Before that moment, Yusuf had appreciated those eyes, odd as they may be.  
Now, he wanted to make them close forever.
Fate had other plans.
Yusuf gasped back to life, coughing as he scrabbled at his stomach, trying to find a trace of the stab that had killed him.
There was nothing.  Blood on his clothes and tears in the fabric, but his skin was unblemished.
He heard a gasp a few feet away and swung around to see the man with the eyes the color of a torrential ocean come to life as well.  He clutched at his throat, trying to find his wound.  But it wasn’t there.
Their eyes met.
The man opened his mouth, perhaps to speak.  Yusuf sprang forward, shoving his knife into the man’s chest.
“Stay dead this time,” Yusuf snarled at him, watching as his eyes stopped seeing.
He staggered away from the man, reunited with his fellow defenders.
Those eyes wouldn’t leave his head.
Yusuf saw them again and again as they continued to find each other on the battlefield.  They fought, they died, they came back.
And still, those eyes haunted him.  
He tried to sleep less, to avoid dreaming of them.  But then he tossed and turned, seeing them in his mind’s eye.  Finally, he gave up and reached for his pack and pulled out his charcoal and a piece of parchment.  He didn’t have any pigment, but maybe if he could just put the details of the man’s eyes on paper, he would finally be able to forget.
The paper was filled with the man’s eyes, the wide-eyed look from when Yusuf managed to slice open his neck, the glare of concentration as he fought, the closed, peaceful expression he wore before gasping to life again.
The sun rose and Yusuf threw the sketches into a nearby fire, watching as the paper caught and blazed.
He was no closer to forgetting the man or his eyes.
______________________________
Yusuf was tired of fighting.  Tired of all the blood.  All the death.  He and the man killed each other once more, only to wake together at the base of the crumbled wall of the city Yusuf had been trying to protect. Staring at the smoke filling the sky, Yusuf heaved a sigh.  He was so tired.
He turned his head as he lay there, his body still knitting itself back together, and made eye contact with the man in his dreams.  His eyes weren’t filled with hatred at the moment.
Yusuf saw the same bone weariness that echoed within his body in the man’s eyes.
Heaving himself to his feet, even though his body wasn’t fully healed, Yusuf turned to the man, who stared up at him.  He didn’t make any effort to protect himself from an attack.  Just looked at him steadily, those eyes fixated on Yusuf’s face.
Yusuf held out his hand to the man to help him up.  He was almost surprised when he took it.
Together, they walked away from the battlefield.  They had been traveling together ever since.
The man - Nicolò, he had said - was a quiet, introspective man Yusuf found.  There would be days that they barely spoke, just passed the water skin between each other and gestured what direction they should go and when they should stop for the night.
That changed after they were attacked.
While he and Nicolò were on foot, their adversaries were on horseback.  They galloped towards the two of them, who quickly pulled out their swords and stood back to back.  In a moment, they were surrounded.  Yusuf saw the red crosses on the men’s chests and tensed.
They yelled something and Nicolò responded.  Yusuf understood about two words a sentence, they were speaking so quickly.  The men were asking Nicolò what he was doing with a- well, with Yusuf.  Nicolò said a word that might have been “guide” but Yusuf wasn’t sure.
All he knew was that one of the men raised his crossbow and shot him directly in the chest.
He heard Nicolò scream his name as he fell, already dying.
When he gasped to life, the men around them were dead.  Nicolò was bent over him, anguish in those kaleidoscope eyes.
“Are you well?” Yusuf asked as soon as he got his breath back.
Nicolò’s mouth twisted and his eyes dropped.  “Fine,” he muttered.  “Just a few scratches.”
“On the bright side,” Yusuf said, looking around at the carnage, “we now have horses.”
“Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, save me from optimists who find positives after dying,” Nicolò muttered, getting to his feet.
“We die frequently, Nicolò.  If I didn’t find positives during these moments, I fear I would have gone mad long ago.”
“What positives were there to be found on the battlefield?  Awakening amongst all those bodies?” Nicolò demanded, rounding on him.
“Not many,” Yusuf admitted, getting to his feet.  Grinning at Nicolò, he teased, “At the time, I thought getting another chance to kill you was a positive.”
Nicolò stared at him a moment, disbelieving.  Then he snorted, a smile gracing his face for the first time.  It was small but it was there and Yusuf was momentarily dumbstruck.
“And now?” Nicolò asked, sobering.
Yusuf stared at the man with whom he had created a tentative alliance.
“Now, I think I would rather cut off my hand than raise it against you,” he said plainly.
Nicolò’s eyes widened.  Surrounded by the bodies he had killed for hurting Yusuf, he nodded.
“We should go.”
They made good headway that day, seeing as they were no longer on foot.  Once they called a halt and set up a tentative camp, Nicolò mentioned seeing a stream nearby.
“I should get some of this blood off of me,” he said, staring at his hands.
Yusuf was thrown when he came back clean shaven.  In the time of knowing Nicolò, he had been… well… disheveled.  Unkempt.  Kind of disgusting.
This Nicolò was a different man altogether.
Yusuf was glad he had the excuse of washing himself as well to get away from this new version of his traveling companion.
Once he was clean and back at camp, Yusuf elected to take first watch.  Nicolò nodded, silent once again, and curled up by their small fire, facing Yusuf.
Cocooned in the quiet, Yusuf found he couldn’t stop thinking about Nicolò’s look after his admission earlier.
It was the truth, he couldn’t deny it.  In the time they had been traveling together, Yusuf had noticed a change in his travel companion.  Before that even.  On the battlefield, they had fought, but the look in Nicolò’s eyes had changed as time went on.  He had seemed angry, but Yusuf didn’t know where the anger was directed.  At the situation?  At Yusuf? 
At himself?
Since they had left the fighting, Yusuf had seen signs that the latter was the truth.  Yusuf prayed every morning, whether he had been on watch at the time or not.  Nicolò looked away as he did so, but never disturbed him.  Nicolò stopped walking throughout the day, as it came to the next time to pray, to the point that Yusuf didn’t have to ask to stop after the first few days.  
Yusuf saw him praying as well, quietly folding his hands as he knelt.  He, too, looked away.  
Then today, there was a look of anguish in his eyes as Yusuf came alive.
Yes, his companion was changing.  But so was Yusuf as he admitted that, should the situation be reversed and Nicolò had been the one killed instead, Yusuf would not have hesitated to attack those who had hurt him.  They were no longer adversaries, but something else.
He just didn’t know what exactly he would call them now.
Shaking himself, he got out a piece of charcoal and paper to distract himself from his thoughts.  Only, his gaze fell on his sleeping companion and he couldn’t stop himself from starting to sketch him.  The lack of tension in his face was better than when he was dead.  He was relaxed, not lifeless.  Yusuf found he far preferred this.
A branch in the fire snapped and Nicolò’s eyes flew open. Their eyes met.
Yusuf felt the air whoosh out of his lungs as he sat there, stunned at the concern and care he saw in Nicolò’s gaze.
“Apologies,” Nicolò muttered, shifting and breaking eye contact.  “I thought I heard something and had to ensure you were safe.”
Yusuf filled his lungs only to let out a shaky breath.  “I am well.  Thank you,” he said, clutching the paper in his hand.
Nicolò nodded at him, then closed his eyes once more.
This time, Yusuf didn’t feed the papers he filled with drawings of Nicolò to the fire.
_____________________________________
Nicolò’s hair was mussed from where Yusuf’s finger had been running through it.  Yusuf revelled in the fact that he could touch Nicolò like that.  This new stage of their relationship was so new that every kiss felt like a revelation.
Yusuf kissed Nicolò’s lips one more time, then pulled away to look at him.
“Let me draw you,” he blurted, unable to keep the request to himself.
“Now?” Nicolò said, eyes wide.  He reached up to fix his hair, but Yusuf batted his hand away.
“Yes, exactly how you are.  I’ve drawn you so many ways before, Nicolò, but never like this.”
Nicolò paused, staring up at him.  “You’ve drawn me?  When?  How many times?”
Yusuf paused, wondering if he wanted to answer that fully.  He sighed, hanging his head.  “Many times, starting shortly after our first time fighting.  It’s your eyes,” he said, looking up and staring into them.  He reached up and caressed Nicolò’s cheek.  “They captivated me.  I could not get them out of my mind.”
“Even as I-” Nicolò said, but stopped, unable to list the number of offenses he had done against Yusuf and his homeland.
“Yes, Nicolò, even then.  And after.  I thought I would run into a tree the first time I saw you clean shaven and well, clean, I was so distracted.  Finally, the rest of your countenance matched those eyes.”
Nicolò narrowed his eyes at Yusuf.  “I don’t know if I should be offended for my former self or take that as a compliment.”
Yusuf laughed.  “You were very dirty before, in my defense.”
“Granted.”
“So may I?” Yusuf asked.
“What do I do?” Nicolò asked, looking uncertain.
“You don’t have to do anything at all, just sit there.  Give me one moment.”  Yusuf hurried to his pack and retrieved his art supplies.  
He turned back to where he had left Nicolò and was struck once again by the man in front of him.
“You are so beautiful,” he breathed.
Nicolò ducked his head, a blush rising in his cheeks.
“Nicolò…” Yusuf had to kiss him.  Just once more before he started to draw him. 
“Okay, okay.  Just sit there, okay?  You can talk and breathe and all that, just try not to move too much.”
“So glad that I have your permission to breathe,” Nicolò said with a completely straight face.
Yusuf snorted, then got to work.
He couldn’t wait to draw Nicolò in all the different situations that they would come across in life.
__________________________________
When he made that optimistic, loving thought, Yusuf didn’t have a full grasp at just how devastating some of the situations they would find themselves in would be.
He didn’t know Andromache the Scythian when he had thought that.  He didn't know Quynh. He didn’t count them as sisters and fellow warriors.  He didn’t see their love for each other and for him and Nicolò and for the world.
He hadn’t yet seen the devastation from the loss of Quynh on Andromache’s face.  Hadn’t seen Nicolò’s face go cold and distant as he was told what had happened.
Yusuf hadn’t felt the agony of losing his immortal sister to the waves.
Now that he had, he could barely pick up his art supplies.  Still, he wanted that mindlessness that came with being immersed in a drawing, when his mind was so focused on the art in front of him it forgot the world around him.  He put charcoal to paper and line after line, tried to capture Nicolò’s face.  But the longer he drew, the more he realized.
It wasn’t Nicolò’s face staring back at him on the paper.
It was Quynh’s.
With a shout of rage and desolation, he swept his drawing supplies off his meager desk.
He felt Nicolò’s hand on his shoulder and almost didn’t turn to himself toward his love.  But in the end, he collapsed into his arms and felt as Nicolò gave into his anguish as well.
They held each other as they fell apart.  
________________________________________
Nicky was reclined in a cloth chair on one of Malta’s beaches, sunhat saving his complexion from the sun’s rays.  Though any sunburn would heal, it would soon be back, starting a vicious cycle that the hat helped avoid.  He was relaxed into the seat, eyes closed as he lounged.
Joe was having a hard time keeping his eyes off his husband.  His everything.
It was their fifth day in Malta and the first that they had made it out of their small but cozy house.  Joe knew part of the reason Nicky was so relaxed, and had to redirect his thoughts before they betrayed him.
Nicky’s eyes squinted open and glanced at Joe before he sighed and handed him the bag they had packed for the beach.  In it, they had some food, water, sunscreen, and Joe’s drawing supplies.
“Grazie, ya amar,” Joe said cheekily, reaching for his sketchbook and pencils.
“Prego,” Nicky murmured back, eyes once again closed.
Joe began to sketch Nicky’s relaxed pose, being sure to include the hat and the slight redness that was present on his nose anyways.  If Nicky didn’t look so comfortable, he would mourn the fact that he couldn’t render his eyes to paper.  
As if hearing his thoughts, Nicky’s eyes opened and looked over at him without moving his head.  Joe was lucky that Nicky had a sniper’s patience, to sit and not move for long periods of time.  Throughout the ages, he had become quite a competent model.
“You’re beautiful,” Joe breathed, taking in the man who had become his everything.
Nicky flushed, just as he did every time Joe said those words so reverently.
“Would you like to swim with me, my love?” Nicky asked.
“Two more minutes and then absolutely,” Joe said, hurrying his hand.
“Take your time,” Nicky replied readily and it was good that he did, because his eyes stayed open, staring at Joe.  Joe couldn’t miss this opportunity to put those gorgeous eyes on paper.  It had taken him many, many years to perfect the pigments necessary to perfectly render them into his art.  
Now, he could draw Nicky sightless.  But the experience of drawing Nicky never felt invariable.  Even though it was such a normal experience that Joe’s art supplies were packed amongst food and water, Joe himself never felt unaffected by the trust and patience Nicky showed each time.
Much longer than two minutes later, he nodded his head.  “Alright.  Swim?” he asked.
“May I see?” Nicky asked, holding out a hand.
No matter how many centuries of practice, Joe had to say each time he shared a piece of his art, “It’s not perfect, there were a few places I wasn’t happy with-”
“Yusuf?” Nicky said, not looking at him, just staring down at his drawn face.
“It will never stop astonishing me, the way that you see me.  There is love in every stroke of your pencil.  Therefore, every drawing of me that you create is perfect,” Nicky stated, looking him in the eye to press his point.
Joe let loose a breath, unable to look away from his love.
Not breaking eye contact, Nicky closed the sketchbook and placed it to the side, then stood.  He pulled Joe into his arms, running his nose against the curls of his beard that graced his jaw.  
“Potrei fissare i tuoi bellissimi occhi in eterno. Potrei guardarti tutto il giorno,” Nicky murmured.  I can gaze into your beautiful eyes forever.  I could watch you all day.
He leaned in and pressed his lips gently to Joe’s.
“You may love my eyes,” Nicky said softly, “but yours captivate me as well.  Not just their beauty, but how they see the world.”
“Nicolò, ya hayati, baciami per favore,” Joe breathed.
Nicky obliged, hands cupping Joe's jaw as he pulled him into another kiss.  When they broke apart, they didn’t go far, just rested their foreheads together.  Those beautiful eyes were right there, and Joe found himself getting lost in them.
“Swim?” Nicky asked after a while.
“Sunscreen first,” Joe said, pulling himself together.  
He grinned.  “I’ll get your back.”
_______________________________________
Nicky was reading on the chair, so of course, Joe was drawing him from over on the couch.
Nile plopped down next to Joe with her own sketchbook.
“Do you mind if I join?” she asked, holding up her own art supplies.
“Please!  Nicky deserves to be put to paper as often as possible.  I would never claim that honor solely to myself.”
Nicky smiled at him from over his book, then went back to reading.  The whole time, he didn’t move his pose.
Truly a great model.  Joe was so lucky.
“Awesome!  It’s been forever since I’ve been able to do still life drawings.  Jay used to pose for me sometimes in our downtime, but we could never do it too often.  Thanks, Nicky!” Nile called.
“My pleasure,” he said, his eyes twinkling at her from behind his book.
Once Nile got started, they fell into silence, each concentrating on their own task.  Nicky turned the pages with his thumbs, so as to not disturb his pose.  It was a move, Joe knew, he had perfected for especially these situations.
“Ugh, I just can’t get his nose right,” Nile said suddenly.
Joe glanced over at her work and did a double take.  He had known that she was an artist, she had told the group how she had wanted to go to art school after her tour, but he hadn’t seen any of her artwork yet.
Her style of drawing was different from the way that Joe drew Nicky, there was no denying it, but she had captured the concentration in his brow, the strength in his shoulders.
There was also a massive erased space where his nose should be.
“I would make a Tangled joke, but I know you guys wouldn’t get it,” she said, pouting slightly.
“Lol,” Nicky said, straight faced.
“Oh my God,” Nile said, rubbing her forehead.
“It took me many years to be able to render Nicky’s profile as well as you have here.  Well done, Nile!  May I show you how to portray his nose?” Joe said, smiling at her. 
“Sure,” she said, leaning on his shoulder to get a good look at his paper.  “Whoa, Joe,” she breathed when she saw the sketches on the page.  “These are incredible.”
“Years of practice,” Joe said, throwing a wink Nicky’s way.  “Okay, so for his nose…”
They continued to draw as the day passed by.  Nile sometimes hummed a song without seeming to realize she was doing so, Joe and Nicky sharing fond smiles.  The fact that she was comfortable enough to draw with Joe, let alone lose herself in it enough to absentmindedly hum, made Joe’s chest warm with affection for his new immortal sister.
He sensed Andy before he saw her.  She emerged from the patio where she had been sitting as the day progressed and was staring at the scene in front of her.  He could see the smile in her eyes, even though it didn’t grace her lips.
“Here, you two, I’ll give you a real pose to draw,” she said, before she flung herself horizontally on top of Nicky, who scrambled to save his book and cursed her affectionately in three languages.
Nile’s laughter rang through the room and Joe didn’t want to stop himself from joining her.  
Andy grinned from her sprawled position on top of Nicky, who looked resigned to his fate.
Joe switched over to a new piece of paper and saw Nile doing the same.  Sharing a smile, they turned back to their little immortal family and began to put them to paper.
Joe made sure to emphasize the look of long-suffering love in Nicky’s eyes as Andy began to snore on top of him.
He did always love to draw Nicky’s eyes, after all.
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dirty-holy-things · 4 years ago
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The Space Between (your heart & mine)
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Chapter 18 has been posted to Ao3, and below to Tumblr.
Catch up on chapters 1-17 on Ao3.
Notes: This fic is 18+ and explicit. This chapter includes canon-typical violence and description of injuries. This is a very heavy and emotional chapter that explores feelings of grief, and while the ending of this chapter is positive (trying to avoid spoilers), please exercise caution if this is a sensitive subject. I will say though, that for all of the pain I may put y'all and these characters through, we will have a happy ending.
Words: 5.9k update, 86.8 total.
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Din nodded wordlessly at the man before moving to exit the shop; his business here was completed, and now it was time to go home. To go back to you, to hold and kiss you, and to try and keep this exciting new secret to himself. As his footsteps landed on the volcanic gravel of the city street, his attention was abruptly drawn to a loud crack and crumbling sound that echoed off of the buildings around him. The intrusive and unexpected sound snapped him right into high alert, needing to know the source of the sound — and needing to know where you were, if you were safe.
His feet couldn’t seem to move fast enough as he rushed through the streets, sidestepping merchant carts, droids, and young children that played without concern for the unexpected noise. His mind raced with ideas of all of the horrible things that could’ve happened to you — what if you got stuck in the middle of a shootout? What if something collapsed and you were crushed by it? What if someone had attacked you? He tried to recall if you had told him where you were going, before you had exited the cantina earlier; but despite wracking his brain, he couldn’t remember anything that offered any consolation or comfort. He wished that his feet would move as quickly as his mind was; his breathing grew more labored as he drew closer and closer to where he believed the sound to have come from.
“He looks through the wound of my life like it’s light. So I let him.” — Omotara James, Pier 52
Din’s fingers drummed ceaselessly on the sticky tabletop in the cantina, just wanting this exchange of pleasantries with Karga to be over so he could return home to you. What should have been a fifteen minute meeting turned into an hours-long event; at this point, having worked for the guild for countless years, Din knew he should expect this, but it still didn’t stop him from wishing for something better. These meetings were admittedly much more enjoyable when you accompanied him, as you were able to draw much of Karga’s attention and conversation, allowing Din to withdraw from the exchange; at least, until Karga made a comment out of turn, or a tasteless joke and Din had to remind him of the concept of boundaries. These meetings were a necessary evil, and yet you had somehow made even the more frustrating and mundane parts of his life into something exciting and enjoyable. You had brightened every aspect of his existence through your presence alone; your radiance was never lost on him.
Din was finally able to wrap things up with Karga, having successfully negotiated the next round of bounties after the man had been loosened up by a few drinks. Din was excited to share the upcoming destinations with you — he loved seeing the way that you lit up when you were exploring, learning, flourishing. He had feared before that he was holding you back, by keeping you to himself, but you were incredibly strong and fiercely independent, and you pursued your own interests and ideas with a determination that continually impressed him.
Din excused himself from Karga’s presence, having one more matter to attend to before returning to the ship to wait for you to rejoin him. He exited the cantina with a sigh of relief, happy to be freed of the space that was somehow both empty and all too full at the same time. The ground he walked on here was familiar, but his steps felt lighter now than they ever had before. It felt as though something had lifted the weight that resided on his shoulders, a weight that he hadn’t known existed until he met you.
Din had loved seeing the way that you had grown throughout your shared travels; you were like a sponge, soaking up everything the universe had to offer you. He loved seeing the way you lit up when you talked to him about the historical texts you had picked up, loved seeing you get excited by all of this new and undiscovered information. He was also somewhat secretly relieved that you were no longer thrusting yourself into unsafe situations simply in the name of profit; and once you had seen his somewhat disorganized but impressive financial records, you had come to the understanding that the bounty profit resulting from your assistance was... not entirely necessary. Being a man of few interests and slim personal expenses, he had been taking in almost purely profit from every job he had for nearly twenty years. He regularly supported the covert, ensuring that the foundlings could be cared for, but the money he had retained for himself had continued to grow over the years with very little to deplete it. He had never felt the need to spend exorbitant amounts of money on himself before; he hadn’t needed anything other than the Razor Crest and his beskar.
And now, all he truly needed was you and the kid. The ship, as significant as it was, was simply a vessel for the memories the three of you created there. It certainly held value and was special in its own right, but at the end of the day it was a mechanized hunk of metal and fuel. The memories created there would not continue to exist exclusively within the walls of the cabin — they would live on within the three of you. The ship wasn’t home — you and the kid were home, whether you were on Nevarro or Naboo. Steel was only ever steel; spirit was not as confined.
And that was precisely why he was meeting with a merchant to discuss the procurement of a new ship. Something nicer, newer, with better accommodations and more comforts than the Razor Crest could ever hope to offer. Din felt as though he couldn’t give you much in this lifetime, aside from love; he couldn’t turn back time to erase your past, couldn’t give you the tools needed to connect with the Force, couldn’t truly even give you the sight of his face. But he could do this; he could give you this.
He felt confident walking into the office of the local Bureau of Ships and Services liaison. Din knew that coordinating a purchase and acquisition of this magnitude would likely be more business and commission than this man had ever received in his lifetime; and while he knew that there would be a delay as he was not going through the primary office on Coruscant, he was quite relieved to be operating without their greedy and slick influences.
He made his needs clear to the nervous man that met with him; the small, thin man avoided eye contact with the narrow visor of Din’s helmet, and the thermal sensor indicated to Din that the man was sweating profusely throughout their entire interaction. Reviewing necessary requirements and components of this future ship, Din stated that he certainly needed something functional for work as a bounty hunter — hyperdrive, room for an armory and carbonite cargo — but he also wanted something with a galley, private quarters, something that would be nice for you. The man’s hands shook as he searched to find something that would meet these specifications, before eventually suggesting a S-161 yacht that would offer Din “both domestic and business spaces,” to quote the nervous man.
Din looked at the image of the ship that was projected onto the screen in front of him. The sleek shape and structure of the ship was certainly a departure from the bulkiness of the Razor Crest, but when he saw the interior cabin space, he could clearly picture you and Grogu playing in the lounge area; he could see both of your bodies occupying the larger bed space; he could see all of the memories that were yet to come.
Din paid the full amount for the ship upfront, and the man’s face went a bit green at the sight of so many credits. The man’s voice wavered as he informed Din that it would be about three or four weeks before the ship was available and accessible on Nevarro; and this was perfect as it would allow him time to complete the next round of newly-negotiated jobs, before bringing you back here for a surprise. He tried to picture the look on your face when he revealed the new ship to you; he was excited to see how you would react to the lounge area with a couch, a bed bigger than a data pad, everything shiny and new... and waiting for you and Din to christen all the untouched surfaces.
Before leaving, Din informed the man of one additional and seemingly superficial request. “I would like for something to be installed, that would allow one to... grow flowers. An artificial light of some sort.”
He recalled an off-handed comment that you had made about you can’t grow flowers in space, and how you had shared with him that your mother had taught you about floristry — it seemed to be one of the few positive connections you had to your past, and Din wanted to give you the ability to reconnect with this piece of your history, in a new and healthier way.
“S-sure, I’m sure something can be added to allow for that.” Din could hear the confusion and curiosity in the man’s voice, but luckily he knew well enough to keep his nose out of Din’s personal business. Didn’t need to know why a Mandalorian wanted to grow daisies.
Din nodded wordlessly at the man before moving to exit the shop; his business here was completed, and now it was time to go home. To go back to you, to hold and kiss you, and to try and keep this exciting new secret to himself. As his footsteps landed on the volcanic gravel of the city street, his attention was abruptly drawn to a loud crack and crumbling sound that echoed off of the buildings around him. The intrusive and unexpected sound snapped him right into high alert, needing to know the source of the sound — and needing to know where you were, if you were safe.
His feet couldn’t seem to move fast enough as he rushed through the streets, sidestepping merchant carts, droids, and young children that played without concern for the unexpected noise. His mind raced with ideas of all of the horrible things that could’ve happened to you — what if you got stuck in the middle of a shootout? What if something collapsed and you were crushed by it? What if someone had attacked you? He tried to recall if you had told him where you were going, before you had exited the cantina earlier; but despite wracking his brain, he couldn’t remember anything that offered any consolation or comfort. He wished that his feet would move as quickly as his mind was; his breathing grew more labored as he drew closer and closer to where he believed the sound to have come from.
Din came to a halt in front of a crumbling building, the entire west-facing wall having collapsed into itself; the dust from the destruction filled the air around him and he searched the scene with a furious desperation, needing to know what had happened, needing to know if you were here. Through the ash and dust that choked out the fading light of the sunset, Din saw a familiar frame that he would have recognized anywhere — and his heart leapt into his throat as he screamed out your name in fear and all-encompassing terror.
He tried to run towards you, needing to have his hands on you, needing to know that you were alright — but as he drew closer, the air around him felt heavier; it was as if he was trying to run through quicksand, his movements slowed, and requiring more force and exertion than they should have. It was as if there was some sort of barrier around you, preventing Din from getting any closer; and eventually, his ability to move towards you stopped entirely, an unseen and impenetrable wall keeping you apart from him.
But from this vantage point, being about five feet away from you, he could see that you were not alone in this crumbling alleyway. There was a hulking, almost-human looking man with gnarled and rough grey skin, with an evil-looking axe clutched in his massive fist; but something about this scene was... off. The man was large, but there was no discernible reason why his form should be elevated so far above yours.
The pieces finally came together when Din saw that you were standing in front of the man, feet planted firmly on the ground while your arm extended in front of you, muscles straining as your hand was balled into a tight fist...
The man was a marionette on strings, and you were the one puppeting him.
Din felt a sense of horror radiate through him with this realization, but in addition to the churning mix of fear and horror, there was also a tidal wave of relief that hit him as he realized that you were at least not the one in danger. He continued to scream your name, modulator cracking, but even as his vocal cords became hoarse and raw with the strain you never turned to face him; your gaze remained trained on the man who was levitating within your unseen grasp.
The man was desperately dragging his hands across his throat, as if he was trying to remove an invisible noose that had wrapped around it; Din saw the man’s eyes continue to bulge within his awful looking face, blood vessels popping with strain, before Din turned his gaze back to you and watched a rivulet of blood run through your fingers and down your twitching arm, spattering onto the ground below you.
He had never seen anything like this from you before; it was terrifying but he felt as though he couldn’t look away. Din realized that he had really only ever known you as an incredibly kind and gentle person, and that previous image of you now stood out in stark contrast to this indulgently violent, vengeful storm of a woman who held her ground before him. Every image he had of you was turned on its head, taking on additional depth and dimension, as he began to understand that there was much more to your personhood than just your affection and sweetness.
While he had never rushed to dismiss the past abuse you had suffered, he rarely had to confront the knowledge that you had lived a life of extreme and unyielding violence in the twenty-some years before you met him. Of course you would be capable of these things when under duress; he recalled that he had watched you stab the leader of a drug cartel within the his first few hours of knowing you. At the time he had written it off as self defense, and it certainly still was; but he may have been a bit naive to assume that would be the only episode of violence in your life. Maybe there was a piece of him that didn’t want to acknowledge that this facet of you existed; but whether he wanted it or not, it was a part of you... and yet he loved it all just the same.
He felt entirely helpless and useless as he looked on at the scene before him; he couldn’t breach the Force barrier that you had thrown up around yourself and the Delphidian man, but fuck, he couldn’t walk away from you either. In his peripheral, he could see that a small crowd of onlookers had gathered, curious and fearful eyes watching the dramatic scene play out in the town. Mind racing, Din needed to decide what to do — try and fend off the crowd, shield you from prying and intrusive eyes? Or would he continue to fight against this barrier in front of him, never abandoning his original mission of reaching you?
As Din was debating the options at hand, the tension of the moment came to a head and crashed like a tsunami throughout the demolished alley and its crowd of onlookers. And yet despite the deafening, instantaneous crash, it was as if the galaxy was simultaneously moving in slow motion; Din could almost feel the muscles in your forearm and hand constrict, as your wrist brought your bleeding fist into your chest; and the distinct and undeniable crack of bone made his skin crawl. He was no stranger to the sounds of death, but hearing it come from your actions made his stomach turn. His eyes were glued onto you, glued onto the scene that was rapidly unfolding in the wake of his inaction; he saw the hateful and fiery light behind the man’s eyes snuff out as the life left him. Din was familiar with death; he had brought about more bloodshed than was worth weighing, but seeing a life extinguished at your bidding was...
He couldn’t find the words, despite his best efforts. A torrent of emotions was tearing through him, ravaging every previously-held notion and shaking him to his foundations.
The barrier that had separated Din from you finally gave way, same as the Delphidian’s spine had. The invisible Force wall collapsed to the bloodied ground just as the man’s body did, and the sudden disappearance of resistance in the air caused Din to lurch forward into you, his arms extending outwards as he saw you sway precariously. Your full weight landed against his chest as you collapsed into his arms, and then two of you tumbled to the ground, the metallic sound of beskar clanging within the crumbled stone that surrounded you while he tried to cradle your broken-looking body gently.
Din recovered quickly from the fall, shifting to rest on his knees as he brought your limp form closer to him, your head coming to rest on his lap. He cursed the layers of armor and clothing that kept you separate, needing to feel the heat of the blood rushing through your body, needing to feel the gentle rise and fall of your chest with each inhale and exhale. The way that your head lolled and rolled across him brought about a wave of terror and nausea as he worried that maybe he had been too late, maybe you were gone.
But he could still feel a faint and desperately-sought pulse beneath his gloved fingertips; he held onto this flickering bit of hope and pulled your body in closer to his chest, turning the two of you away from the observing crowd and the crumpled, distorted form of the man you had killed. He continued to hold you against his chest for an unknown amount of time, being paralyzed by the fear that any movement may disrupt the tenuous connection you held to this life; he was not sure how long he had stayed like this, cradling you against him, but it felt as though the moment stretched into eternity.
Din knew he couldn’t face the prospect of life in this galaxy without you. You had fundamentally altered and rewritten every piece of his existence, and he refused to go back to the life he had lived before he had met you. That previous life now seemed dull, almost as if it had existed in black and white, before that fateful day he had arrived in your shop — and since that chance meeting, you had brought all of the colors of life rushing to him, pinks and oranges and yellows and blues and greens and purples, a brightness that he had never felt before and worried he would never experience again without you. A life in black and white is an excruciating exercise in deprivation, after having experienced the beauty of technicolor.
And he couldn’t even begin to fathom the devastation that Grogu would experience, if you never returned home. The kid had taken to you as though you were his mother, and the thought of having to tell him that you were never coming back threatened to break Din’s heart just as irreparably as the Delphidian’s neck. Din knew that neither himself or Grogu would ever recover from this sort of loss, and it only made him cling to you even more desperately, praying to every god in existence that you would come back to him. He recalled how he had previously come to the conclusion that he would certainly lay down his life to save yours; and he now feared that he would never have the opportunity to save you as you had once saved him. He couldn’t use the Force to bring you back, he had no medical training to speak of, he felt entirely paralyzed by his lack of knowledge — and paralyzed by the idea that both he and Grogu, having been brought back to life by your hands, would now be the only living vessels for your spirit, the only proof that you had existed and had loved them wholly.
Din was anchoring every ounce of his hope to the faintly beating pulse of your heart when he felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder, the unexpected weight of it pulling him out of his reverie. His body turned to face this sudden intrusion, ready to fight whatever had disturbed his connection to you; until he saw the familiar face of Cara Dune, a concerned and saddened look on her face as she surveyed the state that you and Din had found yourselves in.
“We need to get her out of here.” Her deep and gentle voice somehow managed to cut through to Din, bringing him back into the present moment. She was right — he needed to get you out of here, needed to get you home, just as he had intended hours ago. You needed to recover at home, in the small bunk that now reflected the shape of your two bodies; needed to recover in the comfort of your own sleep clothes; needed to move away from the destruction you were now resting in.
Although Cara’s assessment was correct, Din’s shoulders cowed into yours, hunched by the overwhelming fear that any disturbance might be the thing to take you away from him. His head shook in response, the fear overtaking any sense of logic or reason; as Cara’s hands moved to your shallowly breathing chest, he growled and pulled you closer to him, feeling the limp structure of your body clashing with the unyielding beskar that covered him.
“Let us help you,” Cara enunciated softly, the concern evident in her voice. “She needs to recover at home, not here in an alleyway.”
Cara had always been good at finding the words that rubbed Din just the wrong way. She was right in her assessment that continuing to stay here, in the mess of blood and rubble, would not help you; but he also couldn’t stop the pressure that leapt into his throat as fear flooded his body, being terrified of hurting you further. She stepped in closer, her hands coming to rest at the bend of your knees, a subtle offering to assist with carrying you back to the Razor Crest, back home. Din pushed away his fear and shifted his focus to what you needed, not what his feelings needed. You needed Din to bring you home.
He felt broken, stuttered sobs wrench free from his chest as he stood up, gently cradling your upper body against him; the tears flowed freely behind the beskar, and he knew that nobody could see his blatant and unashamed display of emotions; but truthfully, he wouldn’t have cared, his concern for you outweighing any sense of self preservation or dedication to reservation. He was grateful that Cara kept her eyes to the ground, however, not trying to force a visual connection when he was clearly already distraught.
Din and Cara carried your body ever so gently into the cabin of the Razor Crest, being conscious of every bump and every step, before settling you softly into the comfort of the small bunk. The very same bunk that you had transformed from a place of functionality, to a place of love and sensuality. Din couldn’t imagine sleeping here, without you next to him.
Your body instinctively curled in on itself, recognizing the comfort of the bunk; your limbs drew closer as if you were retracting inwards to form a shield against the outside world. This innate and insistent need to protect yourself, that continued to present itself in even the most dire circumstances, broke a piece of Din’s heart that he hadn’t even known had existed. Watching your broken body fight for every breath, Din felt the need to do something to feel as though he was helping; he lifted your head up to allow you to rest you more comfortably on the singular and previously shared pillow, positioning you in the same way that he had seen you rest countless times before. Din cautiously and carefully tucked away the strands of hair that had fallen across your face, before pulling the woolen blanket tightly around your slowly breathing form; he tucked the corners of the blanket in around your body, knowing how you preferred to be wrapped snugly within.
Din had remained crouched next to the bunk, staying close to you so he could continue to watch your shallow but steady breaths, the rise and fall of your chest being the only solace he received during this whole ordeal. He waited for the color to return to your cheeks, watched for any fluttering of your eyelids that would indicate an awakening. He timed the breaths that you took, each shortened interval causing him to panic that something had gone horribly wrong.
Cara and Karga had been his saving grace throughout this entire ordeal as the days passed. The combined efforts of the duo had convinced Din to move from your side for long enough to shower, to use the restroom, to eat something and drink some water. Their coaxing reminded him that he couldn’t do much to help you if he was suffering as well. You seemed to rest in the bunk for an eternity, never tossing and turning as you usually would.
Din’s muscles had settled into the tragically familiar position of sitting next to you in the bunk, when Cara and Karga finally approached him to discuss the event that had occurred, unable to avoid it any further after countless hours had passed. Cara was the first to speak, her voice echoing softly throughout the cabin of the ship. “Bragant was a wanted target. She didn’t do anything wrong, by killing him, but I have a duty to report his death to the registers of the New Republic.”
Karga nodded at Cara’s statement. “He was wanted by many, and had a bounty on his head. I will pay you both for the body and its recovery.”
Din nodded wordlessly; he was not concerned about the man in the alleyway, was not concerned about any payment, was not concerned about anything except when you may come back to him. Your breaths had been even and steady for hours, and yet you had not woken up. He feared that you had suffered an irreparable, soul-shattering crisis and would never recover from this; and if that were the case, he still knew that he would never leave your side, preferring to waste away next to you rather than try and live a horrifically shallow life without you.
As several uncounted and painful hours had passed, Din waiting impatiently by your side, Din felt a shift within the steel walls of the Razor Crest, a gentle hum spreading throughout the ship and its inhabitants. Din’s gaze focused in on your face, searching for an explanation or answer about what was happening, what he was somehow feeling. After what had quite possibly been an eternity, your eyes fluttered open, pupils blown wide and disoriented as your gaze roamed around the location you had found yourself in.
Din choked on the laughter and tears that this moment had brought him, the overwhelming feeling of joy, relief, and disbelief crashing over him like an avalanche, drowning out all of the fear and desperation and hopelessness he had been experiencing just minutes earlier. Din thought he had previously cried out every tear that his body had to offer, but as he saw the light retuning to your eyes, the beautifully familiar eyes that focused in on the man they loved, he felt sobs cracking forth form his chest anew, threatening to break him in half — but this time, with the weight of happiness and relief. His hands reached out to cradle your face, loving how he could finally feel the heat of the blood that had returned to your cheeks. His head came down to rest against your chest as he cried with his whole body, shaking and sobbing as he whispered your name over and over, sending thanks to whatever deity or Force had deigned to bring you back to him, to bring you back home.
“Din,” you whispered, your voice hoarse and cracking; and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard, more beautiful than the first time you spoke his name, more beautiful than the sounds you made in bed, more beautiful than your first confession of love for him. “Din, what happened?”
He could hear the nervousness in your voice, and as you had just returned to him, he was loathe to talk about something so terrible, to taint the joy that had filled the small cabin once again. His thumbs traced pressured circles into your soft body, his head continuing to rest at your side. “Oh, my sweet girl,” he sighed, his voice sounding strained and pressured through the tears. “Not tonight, please.”
You nodded and conceded easily, and amidst all of the upheaval of the moment he couldn’t help but laugh as he realized this was likely the first and last time you would ever give in so easily. You were beautifully, infuriatingly, insistently stubborn and he loved every single ounce of fight that burned within you. That same stubbornness kept you alive on Chandrila, brought Din back from the brink of death, taught you and Grogu new skills, and today that same fight and fire had brought you home once again. He would never, ever take a single second of your stubbornness and resilience for granted again.
Din could feel the echo of footsteps coming up behind him, and as his body shifted he felt his muscles and joints cry out with exhaustion; he had no idea how long he had been waiting here next to you, but his body seemed to have counted each second, each day, resentfully. As he repositioned himself, his aching body settled into the floor, his back being propped up against the side of the bunk as he tried to progressively stretch the muscles that he had previously irritated.
Cara and Karga had joined the happy and exhausted scene, the relief evident in their soft smiles. “Glad to have you back with us,” Karga said with a laugh, the corners of his dark eyes crinkling as he looked on at the two of you.
“Gave us quite the scare,” Cara added, before moving to pass a canteen of water to Din. He had come across very few individuals in this galaxy that he cared for, and he now realized that he was exceptionally grateful to know both Cara and Karga, as they had taken care of him during this period of upset, which in turn enabled Din to take care of you. And in a roundabout way, this had also allowed for them to take care of you. He wouldn’t have guessed that these two abrasive and tough individuals would make such an effort, would care for you in this way; but then again — the man hidden in a fortress of beskar hadn’t been impervious to your light and your charms, so it should come as no surprise that others loved you too. For all of your past injuries and mysteries, you were incredibly easy to love and willing to love others back with your whole heart.
Din brought the canteen up to you, encouraging you to have some water. The tenderness with which he cradled your head in the crook of his elbow and brought the lip of the container up to you shocked him a bit, as he hadn’t believed that someone as broken and violent as he was, could still have the capacity to show this much kindness. But clearly, you brought out the best in those around you; every individual in the ship could attest to that.
“The little guy can stay with me again tonight, so the two of you can get some rest,” Cara offered, knowing that both you and Din had a long road to recovery. “We can talk about things more tomorrow.”
Karga nodded in agreement. “My previous offer still stands, as well. But that’s a matter for another day. For tonight, find rest and happiness. The world will keep spinning in the meantime, and we’ll catch up with it tomorrow.”
The duo left the ship without any additional commentary, not wanting to intrude or disrupt the hazy sense of peace and exhaustion that had settled on the scene. As Din heard the ramp to the ship close, the cabin grew dark and quiet as it had so many times before — he had been terrified that he may have to face this darkness alone, but you were still here. From his seated position, he pried the armor off of himself; even these simple and routine actions felt exhausting, but he knew that the nightmare was coming to a close and he would be able to join you in bed shortly. You had drifted back to sleep as Din had readied himself for bed; a faint snore was coming from your sleeping form. As he stood and pulled off his dirty clothing, he paused before getting into bed with you. There was something else he wanted to do first.
His calves and his lower back cried out as he walked across the dimly-lit cabin, to the corner that held your things; he gathered your favorite maroon-colored sleep clothes and your medical kit, before crossing back over to the bunk that you slept in. He carefully brought your injured hand closer to him, before cleaning the cuts that your nails had made; he put on a salve that he had seen you use for wounds before, and then wrapped your palm securely with gauze. He repeated the same steps for the wound that was on your chest, placing a large adhesive bandage over the area. He would’ve given anything to be able to use the Force to heal you, as you had done for him numerous times; how infuriating that something so purportedly pervasive and innate was also so fickle and finicky.
Feeling confident enough in his medical administrations, he then began to exchange your dirtied and damaged clothes with the soft, comforting fabric of the sleep clothes. He moved slowly, not wanting to disrupt or scare you; and he felt incredibly grateful for each beat of you heart that he could feel throughout your body, could feel pulsing underneath your skin.
He finally moved to join you in the bunk, shifting your pliant and willing body to allow him room to rest next to you; as he sunk into the cushions, he wrapped the two of you in the blanket like a cocoon. He realized a bit belatedly that he had left a light on in the cabin, the faint light casting the room with a yellow glow; he knew he should get up to turn it off, seeing as how he had removed his helmet; but as you nestled closely against him, he decided to let it be.
He kissed you repeatedly and ceaselessly, feeling endlessly grateful that this chapter of your shared story had ended on such a hopeful and positive note, when it could have ended in tragedy. He wanted to sink his teeth into this moment, to feel the joy that burst from it like an overripe fruit that falls from the vine. He knew that as long as he lived, he would never tire of this sweetness.
He sighed your name into the nape of your neck, and whispered a soft ‘I love you.’
Your eyebrow raised at his words, allowing for one of your eyelids to open ever so marginally before it drifted closed again; a quiet, “I love you, Din,” passing through your lips with an exhale.
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a-hundred-jewels · 3 years ago
Text
cruel summer ch 12: i have these lucid dreams
Ao3 Wattpad
Summary: sabrina starr, pegasuses, and oh no! the fourth wall broke! do we have a carpenter in the audience?
Word Count: 9000 ish
Tags: Rachel Elizabeth Dare/Jane Penderwick, Rosalind Penderwick/Tommy Geiger, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jane Penderwick, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, Rosalind Penderwick, Skye Penderwick, Chiron (Percy Jackson), Martin Penderwick, Elizabeth "Batty" Penderwick, Elizabeth Penderwick (senior), Iantha Aaronson-Penderwick, Ben Aaronson-Penderwick, Nico di Angelo, Will Solace, Annabeth Chase, Jeffrey Tifton-McGrath, Percy Jackson, Demeter (Percy Jackson), Apollo (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood AU, Demigods, demeter!elizabeth penderwick, demeter!rosalind (second generation), demeter!batty (second generation), apollo!alec mcgrath, apollo!jeffrey (second generation), demeter!jane (second generation), demeter!skye (second generation), all of that's in no particular order, main focus is on jane because i love her and she's so so fun to write, tomsalind is there (and stuff will happen - i can't really say what, it will really be eventful though), yes of course there's solangelo, takes place right before Penderwicks In Spring, After Trials of Apollo, more tags to come??, Minor Swearing
Notes and Full Chapter below cut:
Hello everyone and welcome back! I'll admit, this is a little later today than I'd been planning to post (was hoping to get an early start), but hey! If the Puppet History season 4 finale can be late, then so can I!
First off, a massive massive thank you to waterbottle_stickers for being the best beta reader ever. This chapter would be a mess without you. Also, if you haven't already, please check out their enola holmes fic wherever you stray, i follow it's truly wonderful.
If you've been following me on tumblr, then you'll know that, in addition to reblogging an alarming quantity of good omens fanart, I've been making some plans for fics this month. The original plan from back in august was to post every day of the month, but... ahhh.... I just don't work that fast lmao. I'll have to be content with just posting a fair amount this month. Happy october! Anyway, stay tuned.
On this fine day, we've got two lovely QUEER fanfic recommendations that I'm very excited to share. Up first is one from the tumblr blog izzielizzie (which you should all absolutely check out! especially if you're into the one of us is lying fandom!). it centers around the skye/melissa pairing and their senior prom, which Skye is said to have only gone to last minute, and also wearing a lab coat, in a passage of the penderwicks at last. featuring some oblivious lesbians and also jane. once again a massive thanks to izzielizzie, as this fic is one of my favourites!. click here to take a look! (also keep an eye on her blog in general bc her penderwicks fics are awesome!)
The second fanfic is also one I'm very fond of, as it focuses on the siblinghood of skye and jane, which is one of my favourite topics on earth. check out rolling down the ancient high street by hanchewie/ramblemadlyon (tumblr and ao3 respectively) for the sibling antics of aroace skye and bisexual jane when the latter visits the former at her college in california! and, if you like it, ramblemadlyon has two other penderwicks fics from the past couple days that look fantastic as well, and that I look forward to reading.
This chapter is dedicated to my therapist, since I've decided this will be the month of oddly specific dedications. thank you for telling me to stop referring to cruel summer as my "trash baby" and help me recognize the true worth that it holds in my life.
Disclaimer: not my characters, you know the drill. Jeanne Birdsall and Rick Riordan are lucky ducks indeed. chapter title is (obviously) from "lucid dreams" by Juice WRLD.
FROM THE POV OF JANE PENDERWICK
The woods loomed around me, seeming as tall as buildings as they invited me in further. I took another step, the sharp pain of a pinecone digging into my foot barely registered in my mind. I kept walking. A crack sounded throughout the air, and, behind me, a tree splintered round its base and fell down, only inches away from crushing me dead, and completely blocking the path out.
Frightened, I began to run, looking for a way out of the forest. But no matter which way I went, there were only trees in front of me. Where was the path? Where was the grassy hill I had walked down to get in here in the first place. Had I even walked down that hill to begin with? Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure I remembered coming here. I wasn’t sure I remembered waking up this morning, or going to bed last night, or anything besides existing in the forest. Who was I? What was I doing here? How could I get out?
Panicking, I stood in the middle of a clearing, looking frantically at the trees around me, trying to find something familiar. Nothing. I was exhausted. How long had I been here? An hour? A day? A lifetime? I collapsed at the base of a tree, sobbing as I tried to remember. Something. Anything.
Then, a voice echoed around me. “Welcome,” it said, and my mind went black.
I bolt upright in bed, a scream halfway out of my throat. I clamp it back, not wanting to wake my cabinmates. Thin light whimpers through the window--enough for me to see my white-knuckle grip on the sheets, but not enough to pass as daylight.
What time is it?
Our cell phones don’t really work here--that was one of the first things Miranda told us when we arrived, and Batty’s been gleefully lording it over us that her Mp3 player will still play music and, like, function, while our smart phones recline sadly in our duffel bags. That being said, I don’t feel quite brave enough to get out of my bed just yet and tiptoe over to the big analog clock that Rio bought at a pawn shop in Colorado. Maybe my phone will at least show the time.
I reach under my bed and fumble for my duffel, hooking my pinky through the zipper loop and yanking it out onto my floor. My phone’s in the front pocket, buried under two pairs of headphones, several gum wrappers, and some strawberry leaves (?????). A piece of gum peels off the screen as I disentangle my phone, and I mentally chide my past self for being so messy.
My phone does not turn on. Big clock it is.
I tiptoe across the cold tile and peer around the tree.
5:45 .
Jesus Pagan Christ.
It’s too early to wake anyone up (as I think this, Batty lets out a snore to rival any crabby Tyrannosaurus Rex), so I wrap a blanket around myself like a criminally attractive burrito, and creep out onto the porch, with my notebook and pen tucked into my shirt.
As long as I live, I will never get tired of summer mornings. There’s something deeply lovely about the soft light of the still-sleepy, pink lemonade sun, the quiet anticipation of the cool air, damp from dew and preparing for the upcoming heat. At home in Cameron, Skye’s woken me up many an early morning to go for a run or do soccer drills or for a grueling “Seven Minute Workout Except You Don’t Follow The Rules And Torture Your Sister by Making It Actually A Forty-Nine Minute Workout.” (But it’s okay, I’m not bitter). But, as delightful as those experiences have all been, I don’t think Skye really gets it. The beauty of the summer morning is not what it can do for your workout schedule, but rather in its gentle softening of an otherwise boiling day. It is to be appreciated in the way that I am now, sitting curled up on this frighteningly creaky porch (I mean, seriously, who built this?) and calling up the Sabrina Starr section of my brain to try and write away the residual panic from my nightmare.
Sabrina sighed as the plane took off. She wasn’t sure if she should have followed the voice in her head telling her to come here. Saying it out loud--even just thinking it--made it sound ridiculous. A dream, a voice in her mind. Barely more than a whim.
Worse than that, Sabrina wasn’t even sure where this whim was taking her. On a napkin in her pocket, she’d scrawled everything she remembered about the dream from the night before. The dark sky, lit only with spiderwebs of lightning, the shadowy figure huddled on a beach and soaked through with rain. The voice crying for help.
And a name. Aeaea.
After she’d woken up, Sabrina had looked up Aeaea, too tired to fully connect why the name felt familiar. Her heart had sunk further after reading the Wikipedia entry, and a breath of hopelessness had left her lips. According to the internet, Aeaea was not a real place. It had been the island prison of Circe. Fiction wasn’t new to Sabrina, and neither was mythology (she recalled an adventure spent with a ghost called Rainbow from a few years back).
Fictional places, though, were another matter. How could she get somewhere if she didn’t know where she was going? Was she trusting her gut with too much this time?
Sabrina folded up the napkin and put it back in her pocket. There was no point in worrying about that now. She’d looked at enough maps to make a guess at where Aeaea might be if it was real. When she got there, she could get more information. Sabrina Starr had survived this long in her career of rescues and whims. She could survive one more adventure. Worst case scenario, she said to herself, I spend a few days running around for nothing and have to brush up on my Greek.
She repeated it to herself like a promise. Worst case scenario, worst case scenario… Eventually, tired out from all her anxieties, and from trying desperately not to worry about what would come next, Sabrina fell asleep.
FROM THE POV OF RACHEL ELIZABETH DARE
“Okay, I give up. Tell me what’s wrong.” Annabeth’s voice startles me away from my plate of eggs, which I had been pushing around with a fork. Anxiety bubbles in my throat, just as it had been since I woke up, and food just doesn’t sound like a good idea.
“I--what?”
Annabeth waves her hand impatiently. “Don’t play dumb. I’ve been talking to you for five minutes and I don’t think you’ve looked up once. Also you’re always hungry in the mornings, so unless you, like, ate an entire cow before I got here, this ,” she gestures to my uneaten eggs, “is unusual behaviour.”
I give her a look. Sometimes, I get the feeling that Annabeth exists as a part of multiple different dimensions at once, like she’s having four other conversations that I can’t hear, and is still ten steps ahead of me in the one I’m actually a part of.
Or maybe I’m just easy to read.
“Nothing’s wrong.” I don’t want to talk about it. “I’m fine.” I’m terrified.
Annabeth sighs. “Is this about the prophecy?”
“No,” I spear another piece of egg, and don’t eat it. “Maybe. Yes.” I feel like going back to my cave and staying there for the rest of my life. Waiting with a book and some paints for the prophecy to get bored and go away. Maybe I’d take Jane with me, or Nico, for some company. That sounds nice.
My plate is pulled away from me as I aim my fork again. “I can’t pay attention when you do that,” Annabeth huffs. I think I wouldn’t invite her to stay in my cave. She’s too on the nose when I want to mope. Then again, she says the same about me.
“Fine,” I turn and face her. “Let’s talk feelings.” Connor Stoll, who had been making his way towards our table, abruptly turns around and walks the other way. I should get Chiron to hire a therapist. Gods know we need it.
Further proving my point, Annabeth’s eyes widen a little, before she remembers it is I who will be spilling. (I make a point to corner her later. It’s a routine we have). “Wow. You broke fast.”
I nod. “I’m tired and you’re annoying.” (False. We both know it. Another routine). “Like you said, I’m nervous about the prophecy.”
Annabeth nods. “And?”
I frown. “What do you mean, and ? There’s no and.”
Annabeth frowns back at me. A mirror, a mime, an annoyance. The nerve to look disappointed in me. “I thought you were spilling, Red.”
I roll my head back and study the roof of the pavilion, which Annabeth designed, and slowly lean my head down to stare at the table. I really don’t want to have this conversation. I go along anyways. “I’m worried about Jane.”
Annabeth leans back, triumphant. “Ah, yes. Your girlfriend.”
Maybe if I try reeeeeeeally hard, I can activate the Oracle of Delphi and freak Annabeth out enough to make her go away. “ Not my girlfriend. You know that.”
“You called Percy my boyfriend for weeks before we actually officially decided.”
I wave my hand dissmissively. “That’s different, you guys were dancing around each other for like three years. You needed a bit of a push. Jane and I kissed once! Over a week ago! And nothing came of it.” We actually haven’t really talked about it. We’re in this sort of in-between zone where we spend a ton of time together, but don’t have a label for it. Honestly, it’s been nice.
Annabeth grins, apparently reading my thoughts. “You’ve been eating lunch with the Demeter cabin, like, every other day. I saw you doing archery together yesterday. Both of you were awful at it, but you stayed there for hours. I’ve never seen you focus on something that long outside of your paintings.”
I stare at the ceiling again. Maybe Annabeth designed it so that a single square foot of rock might fall down onto my head and relieve me from this conversation. “Yes, fine, we spend a lot of time together. But that doesn’t make us a couple, and has nothing to do with what I’m actually worried about!” I can see in her face that Annabeth is more serious now, and is about to fully listen to me, when Percy and Malcolm show up, sliding into the seats across from us, and clanging several plates of pancakes down onto the table in front of them.
“Made them ourselves! Wanna share?” Percy gives Annabeth heart eyes and a kiss on the cheek when she folds a large blue pancake into thirds and bites it like a burrito. I roll my eyes at them because they are a horrifying and disgusting couple and also I kind of want to be them when I grow up. Malcolm ignores them, instead turning to me. “Were you talking about Jane?” he asks, pushing wire rimmed glasses up his nose.
I frown. “Sort of. Why?”
He shrugs, sheepish. “You know. Just, uh, just wondering.”
I narrow my eyes at him, then Percy, who tears himself away from looking at Annabeth to sigh dramatically. “Malcolm wants to ask out Jane’s sister. You know, the blond one.”
I snort. “ Skye? Seriously?”
Malcolm looks vaguely offended. “What’s so weird about that?”
“Sorry, it’s not weird.” I reach over the table to pat him on the shoulder with my fork. “Perfectly normal teenage hormones.” He glares at me and I smile sweetly back. “I just can’t imagine Skye going out with anyone, that’s all.”
Malcolm stares down at his pancake, disappointed. “Oh. You sure?”
I nod, feeling a little more normal with my friends and less doom-related breakfast conversation. My eggs are past the threshold of “warm and appetizing” but I take a bite anyway. “Pretty sure. Jane told me that she’s aroace and, based on past occurrences, there’s a seventy percent chance she’ll punch anyone who asks her out. Anyway, why the interest? I didn’t know you guys talked.”
Malcolm shrugs. “We don’t, really. She just seems cool.”
Percy pipes in, “He’s been practically obsessed with her since she won that soccer game against the Nike kids and made them cry.”
I nod approvingly. “Well, Malcolm, at least we know you have good taste.”
Annabeth pats him on the head, ignoring his complaints that her hand is covered in blue maple syrup. “Better luck next time, brother of mine.”
Piper and Leo join us next, contributing an alarming volume of grapes and a single hardboiled egg to the breakfast display. Leo grabs a pancake and wraps it around some grapes, before taking a big bite. “I hear you’re discussing Malcolm’s romantic failures,” he says around the world’s worst breakfast burrito. Piper gasps in mock offense, then swallows the unpeeled hardboiled egg whole, like a snake. (This is a regular morning routine. She’s trying to work up to being a sword swallower, since her dad did it in a movie once and she thought it looked like fun). “ Malcolm, why didn’t you come to me? I could have given you a verdict within five minutes!”
“I wanted advice on whether I should ask out that Heaphestus boy two weeks ago and you told me to fuck off.”
Piper pouts at him. “That’s on you, you caught me at a bad time.”
Annabeth holds up a pancake with the air of a respected royal and we turn to her. “As delightful as this is, Rachel and I were initially talking about her romantic prospects and also her worries and fears, and I feel that we should get back to that before she slinks off and avoids the rest of the conversation.”
I glare at her. “Why would you bring this away from the very nice conversation we were having about everyone else’s problems? Do you hate me?” Annabeth rolls her eyes. “No, dumbass, I’m just not letting you walk away from a potential breakthrough. Now, where were we? You were saying that you’re worried about Jane but it has nothing whatsoever to do with your relationship, or lack thereof.”
I give a long suffering sigh, and try to communicate telepathically with Piper that she needs to Save Me Now, but she’s looking at me in interest with her chin resting in her hands, her long fingers adorned with rings sent to her from her Mortal girlfriend, Shel, who bought them at a vintage punk store. The traitor. Defeated, I turn back to Annabeth.
“It’s just that, whatever ends up happening with this prophecy, I don’t want it to fuck her up, in the way the quests have sometimes done to us. Like, we’re used to this by now, but it hasn’t been a smooth road. I don’t exactly like going on quests, and at first I was really worried at the prospect of being included in a prophecy, since that’s fairly abnormal, but Jane was only made aware of her heritage a couple months ago! What if this turns out like Silena or Beckendorf or-or Jason, and the prophecy destroys her, and it’s all my fault because I’m the one who pulled her into all this?”
Everyone tenses up at the mention of Jason, but they continue to look at me with a mixture of concern and love that makes something soften inside of me. For the hundredth time, I think of how lucky I am to have these people who love me unconditionally. Even if they really, really need therapy.
“I know that I didn’t plan any of this, but we’re both tied in now, especially since both Chiron and I had the prophetic dream and I actually gave the prophecy that day in the woods, and, well, this isn’t her world yet. She’s only got a little bit of ichor in her, and she grew up knowing nothing of any of this. In a way, I did too, and I have no ichor, but I had clear sight. For me, it was ineffable, but she could technically leave any time, if it weren’t for the prophecy. She can leave, and I feel like it’s up to me to make sure that doesn’t change.”
“Oh, Rachel.” Annabeth reaches her arms out to me and I let myself be pulled into an embrace. “Jane’s going to be okay. We’ll make sure of it.”
Sabrina stood in line at the boat rental hut, her arms crossed and a frown plastered on her face. It had not been a successful afternoon. For hours, she’d been searching the coastal towns near where her plane landed, looking for some trace of Aeaea, or anything else she’d seen in her dream. She was used to working with dregs. It was normal for her to have to squint a little at the evidence, have to shuffle things together around big holes of “Maybe,” like she was working a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.
But this was something else.
Sabrina had read about places where mythology shaped the culture. Places where the tourist draws were events that had supposedly happened thousands of years ago, or creatures that only existed in grainy photographs and people’s imaginations. Hell, she’d met the Loch Ness monster. Was it insane for her to have assumed she’d be able to find the same kind of thing here? All her training and years of experience had told her that, if you sniff around long enough, you’ll find a conspiracy theorist or a slightly off-the-rails guidebook.
So far, though, Sabrina had found nothing. Absolutely nothing. She hunted around, searching up library catalogs, checking every store on the street. “Aeaea,” “Circe,” even “the Odyssey.”
Nothing.
The line edged along slowly, and Sabrina ran her hands up and down her arms. The air was chilly from its proximity to the cold sea water. There were three people in front of her now. She just had to wait a little longer, then she would have a boat and be able to explore these waters herself.
Something was wrong with this place. Something was wrong with all of these places. And Sabrina was going to figure out what.
Later, Jane and I are taking our time walking to the pegasus stables to watch the riding lesson that Rosalind has reluctantly agreed to let Batty take (provided that Percy, who’s teaching today, doesn’t let her fly high enough that she’ll die if she falls off, and that Batty wears all of the necessary protective gear). Jane looks lovely, wearing a sunshine-y yellow bandana that sets off her dark curls and warm sepia skin. She has on her Camp Half-Blood shirt again, and a short green skirt, and all of it should clash horribly, but it doesn’t.
We’ve decided to cut through the strawberry fields, and I swallow a sun-warmed strawberry while Jane tells me about the dream she had last night. I think back to my conversation with Annabeth this morning when she tells me of the dark woods and the feeling of drowning, the memory warping and the echoing voice. At some point we sit down in a patch of grass, a simple circle amidst strawberry plants with a couple logs where the campers and satyrs take their breaks when they work here. Jane finishes her story and we sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, only broken by the grunts of annoyance Jane makes while trying to get her plant powers to activate again. She’s been doing that a lot.
“Well that sucks,” I say finally. “Have you been having other dreams like it?”
Jane shrugs, the neon orange fabric of her shirt wrinkling on her shoulders. “One or two, I think. Last night’s was the first one I really remembered. ” She smiles out of the corner of her mouth. “I hardly ever remember my dreams. It used to upset me. I thought I was losing potential writing material.”
I laugh. It’s such a Jane thing to think, that I can’t help it. She goes quiet, like she’s reminiscing, and I picture a tiny version of Jane, sitting crossed-legged on her summer quilt, writing. I look at her now, scrunched up nose and big brown eyes. Oh gods, she must have been an adorable child.
“My mother used to say that my imagination was the eighth wonder of the world,” Jane says. She’s looking down the hill at the cabins, plant powers temporarily forgotten, and I remember her telling me about her mother, the first Elizabeth Penderwick, who came here and was a daughter of Demeter and loved opera. The Penderwick siblings’ beloved mother who died so young.
I move closer to Jane on the log. “I can understand why she’d say that.”
Jane smiles again, a little sad this time, a little absent, but full to the brim with love.
“Bet you she’s in Elysium,” I say softly. I explained the Underworld to Jane a couple weeks ago, and she’d gotten this same absent look on her face, that I now know means she’s thinking about her mother. Jane nods, now, then turns to me. “Could we talk about something else?” Her voice is quiet, her eyes a little shiny.
“Course,” I say. “Shall I regale you with tales of dimwittery at this camp in the years past?” I told her last week about the time some Hermes kids tried to order pizza to the camp, accidently causing Chiron to think we were under attack. Jane had nearly fallen off the bench laughing.
She grins now, but shakes her head. “Tell me what it’s like being an Oracle.” I give her a look. She’s asked me before and I never really know what to say. When I give prophecies, it’s like I black out. I’m taken over by another entity who shares my body. (“Like that lady in Suicide Squad ,” Leo had said when I tried to explain it to him once, but I’d refused to be compared to such a gods-fucking-awful movie). So, in a way, I don’t know what it’s like to be the Oracle.
As if reading my thoughts, Jane shakes her head. “Not that part. I’ve seen you all green and smokey, and I know you can’t feel it. I mean the other stuff. How did you know it was you? What did you have to do to become the Oracle? That kind of thing.” I relax a little. Jane’s asked me all sorts of weird questions about Greek mythology and the gods recently. She calls it “research for her book,” but sometimes I think she’s just nosy. It’s cute.
Jane shrugs and looks off into the distance. If you tilt your head a little you can kind of see the stables from here. We have fifteen more minutes to get there, according to my watch. I decide to take it easy. “Delphi is this weird ethereal spirit,” Jane continues, “but there’s also just everyday, Oracle you, who likes paint and denim and bagels.” At that, I laugh. “I actually don’t like bagels that much. I’m just late to breakfast so often that they’re usually the only things available.”
Jane pouts at me and plays with the bracelet tied around my wrist--the one she gave me. “You know what I mean! You know all this weird shit about me because my siblings don’t shut up at lunch, and I know stuff about you, like the denim thing, which I still think is funny by the way. But you’re also the freaking Oracle! Your dormant self lies waiting!” I laugh at her, and she rolls her eyes, but I see the corner of her mouth tilting up. “Rachel, that’s very cool!”
I give in. “Honestly, there’s not much to say, that’s why I don’t talk about it.” I pause. “Well no, it’s that a lot of the stuff beyond the obvious is actually sort of creepy and weird, and not in a good way. There’s stuff I try not to think about, is what I mean.”
The edge of her yellow bandana sticks up as Jane tilts her head at me. “That makes sense. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
I shake my head. “No, it feels okay right now.” I mean it. Now that I’ve gotten into the swing of it, I do want to talk about it. Still, a small sigh escapes me. “I like being the Oracle, because that’s what brought me to a place where I feel like I belong and I have people who love me. It’s nice to know that I’m fulfilling my purpose in life.”
Jane pulls her knees up to her chest. “But?”
“But I also get lonely.” It comes out in a rush. “There are other oracles, but I didn’t know about any of them until the Apollo thing happened, and even then, they’re all supernatural beings--I know, I know, but not in the way I am. It’s not the same. Also, there are all these weird rules. Like I have to stay an unmarried virgin my whole life.”
“That’s fucked,” Jane says softly.
“I know! Chiron won’t even tell me why, just that it’s ‘the rules’” I let out an annoyed huff. “And, like, it’s not even that the idea itself bothers me. That’s pretty much what I was planning to do with my life anyway.”
“Same.”
“But it’s the principle of the thing!” I flick a strand of hair out of my face, offhandedly noticing that the tip of my pinky finger is slightly green. I ignore it. It’s not important. “Just because I don’t want to have sex or get married doesn’t mean it’s a fair rule to impose on me! Besides, why is it always the women in these things whose identities are tied up in who they do or don’t fuck? Last I checked, Grover didn’t have to sign an ‘I shalt not fornicate’ contract when he became Lord of the Wild!”
“Exactly!” Jane raises her hands and shouts up to the sky. “Don’t you fuckers realize we’re more than that?”
“The Hunters of Artemis, too!” I’m a jack-in-the-box, and something’s winding me up. “Thalia and Reyna send me letters all the time, and they seem really happy! Which is great!” I pause to emphasize the greatness of their happiness. My pinky is completely green, now. “But, they also had to make a stupid ‘ode of chastity,’ like I did!”
“Are you kidding me?” Jane’s hair flips as she turns to me. “I thought Artemis was one of the good ones!”
My voice lowers to a husky rumble, and I stare into the distance towards you, the reader. “In a broken system, there are no good ones. Abolish the police.” I clear my throat and my voice turns back to normal. “Sorry, zoned out for a second.” My green pinky has begun to vibrate.
“Happens to the best of us,” Jane’s voice is light and nonchalant. “And yeah, I know. Pretty much all of the gods have skeletons sitting on their shoulders, but it just seems out of character for her. I thought all of Artemis’s groups were supposed to be safe havens, not oppressive structures in their own right.”
I frown. “Yeah you’re right, that is weird. I’d never thought of it much beyond the gods having weird rules, but I wonder if something bigger is at play. The gods might be fucked up in the way that regular people are, and are undoubtedly responsible for all sorts of crap. But then there's more personal things, like the ‘chastity vows’ the Hunters and I had to take, and the fact that Nico was initially outed by Eros, and the weird unexplained eye condition that Piper had during some of her quests that made her eyes a bunch of bright, Eurocentric colors, rather than their natural brown. All sorts of other stuff, too.”
“Wow!” Jane says, sitting up straight on the grass. Her hand moves from where it was resting in her lap to cover her heart. “It’s almost like a bunch of genuinely good and inspiring material, such as including prominent queer people and characters of color in fun children’s fantasy, as well as having an immortal group of warrior women who support each other and are free from the gaze of men, was taken into the hands of a cis white man armed with unchecked misogyny and a fair amount of white Twitter feminism, both of which really showed when he tried to create an inclusive and empowering book series for children! Like yeah, it had its moments, and definitely some good characters, but overall, a lack of meaningful research in certain areas really made it fall flat!” Once again, I stare through the bindings of URLs and internet coding, now joined by Jane as we lock eyes with you, the reader. This time, we hold eye contact for nearly a minute, giving you time to read and process the long tangent spat out by this fanfic’s author, who, if we’re being honest, has gone just a tad off the rails right now. Finally, Jane and I look away from you, and resume our roles as fictional characters, still shaking off that strange cloud that comes with staring into the soul of those who give you life.
“Ugh, what’s going on with me today?” Jane groans at the same time I mutter, “What’s Twitter?” We turn to each other, blinking in the sunlight, then grin. This is normal. We’re fine. Jane looks up at the sky again. “I wonder if the gods are watching us. Maybe we should make them think we suck so they’ll leave you alone.”
I laugh as she sticks her tongue out, grinning wickedly at a nearby cloud. “Better yet, make them think we’re too powerful to be messed with,” I say. Jane sees me watching her and opens her mouth, sucking the cloud in between her teeth. The sky seems bluer in the space where it had been, and Jane’s eyes glitter with mirth as she swallows. “Mmm, tastes like sugar.” I giggle, feeling a small shiver on the top of my head. When I peer up, I see another cloud has floated over to me. I open my own mouth, and take it in, just as Jane did hers. “Sugar, yes. But there’s a touch of blood, too,” I say. Jane nods sagely. “What were we talking about?”
“The inherent misogyny in much of Greek mythology and the world of Camp Half-Blood in general.”
Jane nods again. “Right. A very important topic. It makes it weird when I’m writing sometimes. You know, cause I want to bring in Circe and Zeus and Apollo and all these fascinating characters, but there’s just so much bad stuff tied up with them that comes up when I research.” She looks down at our feet, which are standing in the midst of a strawberry patch. We seem to have been walking, crushing sweet summer strawberries as we go, which is odd because I don’t remember getting up. “You know Rachel, I’m feeling a bit strange.”
I look at her, and see an odd blankness in her warm brown eyes. “Now that you mention it, Jane, so am I.”
“My thoughts and words are my own,” Jane says, “But there’s something up with my body. I can’t really feel it.”
“I agree, I’ve honestly gone a bit numb.” I try to glance down at my fingers, wondering idly if they’ve gotten any more green, but find that my neck won’t bend.
Jane’s eyebrows furrow. “Yet, at the same time, I feel as though I could do anything. Grow another grass blade. Grow a flower. Grow a tree. Bend the world to my will if I wanted to.”
“Or is it the world bending me to its will.” I grin at my own philosophical point, but find that the smile won’t go away. Pretty fucking inconvenient, since the next thing I was going to bring up was part of the whole serious misogyny conversation. I decide to go for it anyway. “And I’m not the only one with weird rules!” Jane nods, as if this is a perfectly normal segway, and the only extraneous thought that floats through my mind as we find ourselves walking down a hill is how unfair it is that she still has control over her neck and I don’t. “Remember when I told you about the Hunters of Artemis?”
“Oh yeah! Your friends Reyna and Thalia, right?”
“Yeah, them! They send me letters sometimes, and seem really happy, which is great.” I pause, meaning to add emphasis, when I’m hit with a great sensation of deja-vu. “Wait a second, we already talked about this, didn’t we?” I try to remember, but something in my mind is rapidly melting. I cannot find it. I cannot find anything.
“Jane?” My voice quivers, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Oh gods, please let this be a dream. For a moment, I try to convince myself that it’s the Oracle of Delphi taking over, just like she did the other day and generally does a couple times a year. But I know that I’m lying. This is not what that feels like. “Jane, where are you?” I can barely move my mouth to say the words. I can feel nothing but the frozen fear of paralysis, of lost control. When I open my eyes, this other thing in my body has brought me to the edge of the forest. “Jane? Jane?” She could be right beside me, unable to speak, and I wouldn’t know because I can’t turn my head, can’t move my eyes, can barely even hear right now.
It’s okay, something says.
“Jane?” It’s not her voice. It’s no one’s voice.
It’s okay. You’re home.
With every cut the wooden oars made through the choppy ocean water, Sabrina knew she was getting closer. She could feel it in her bones, in her brain, a little voice that whispered in her ear. It had been three hours. Her body was worn down, energy levels dipping dangerously low, when she felt something scrape the bottom of her boat.
A rock.
Frantically, she peered through the fog that had begun to surround her boat a mile ago. The island. Had she finally made it?
As if answering her call, a peel of thunder rang out, and Sabrina’s boat began to fill with rain that pounded down from the sky. The storm from her dream. She rowed even faster, then, fear sparking a renewed strength in her tired muscles.
Just as Sabrina was about to reach the shore, a massive wave crashed over her, and her boat capsized. She came back up, sputtering, holding her sopping wet bag above her head. Another wave swept against Sabrina’s face, and she found herself spitting out a mouthful of saltwater. Finally, she washed up on the shore, heaving breaths raking through her lungs.
Sabrina blinked, pushing herself up onto her elbows. It was real. She was here.
She had made it.
FROM THE POV OF ROSALIND PENDERWICK
It’s been a pleasant day so far. Breakfast with my siblings and some of the Demeter cabin (though Jane did seem a bit absent-minded). Miranda, Florien, and Rio convinced me to practice some plant magic with them for a couple hours and I built up to growing a small sunflower. Lunch (again with Jane seeming distracted, though Rachel ate with us this time, which appeared to help). Then, Skye and Jeffrey disappeared with some of the older campers (supposedly for a regular game of soccer, but the unsettling gleam in their eyes had me doubting that was all there was too it), Jane and Rachel went to take a walk in the strawberry fields, and Batty and I were left to prepare for a pegasus riding lesson. If it had been up to Batty, the latter could have easily taken up the entire afternoon, but changing into durable pants and finding a bandana can only take so long.
After a somewhat restless hour, during which I grew three peonies and Batty rhapsodized about the stable of unicorns that another demigod camp apparently has, Batty and I arrive at the stable. We’re ten minutes early, and she’s been talking a mile a minute the whole time, not stopping from before. I swear I now know as much about pegasuses as she does. According to Rachel, the teacher today is Percy, her friend, who’s very responsible “when he puts his mind to it.” I wasn’t sure how to tell her that’s actually not very comforting, but Batty looked so excited and I figured there will be plenty of other people there, so. Why not. She’s been spending so much time there anyway.
Needless to say, I very much regret my decision now.
The stables are modest, made of wood and painted green, and I’ve been there several times by now. There’s a long line of stalls visible when we first walk in, but Batty skips straight to the far end, where a massive pegasus the color of a carrot pokes its head over the door and nuzzles Batty’s hair. She looks up at me with a smile that could melt anyone’s heart, and pats the horse on the nose. “Rosy, this is Queen Lotus Flower. Percy said we have a impenetrable bond.”
I look at the two of them with a questioning gaze. How can they both have the exact same puppy-dog eyes? I swear to god. The gods. All of them. “Batty, sweetheart. That horse is like ten feet tall.”
She nods enthusiastically. “I know, she’s so much taller than any other horse I’ve seen. Percy says she has the biggest wingspan of any horse at camp.”
I nod, slowly, wondering why my sister picked the biggest pegasus to fall in love with. At that moment, Percy pushes the door open. “Hey Batty! Ready for your lesson?” Batty leaves her post by Queen Lotus Flower to wrap her arms around my waist and nod. I look Percy over. He’s a few inches taller than me, with brown skin and curly hair. A beaded camp necklace, orange tshirt, and jeans. Weird arm tattoo aside, he’s one of the most normal-looking people at camp. I’ve only met him a couple times before, but, my nerves over Batty flying around on massive horses aside, I do trust him. Rachel seems to have a good taste in friends. Also, Batty likes him, and she’s still shy around a good number of Skye and Jane’s friends back in Cameron.
For the next few minutes, I watch as Percy instructs Batty on buckling Queen Lotus Flower’s giant saddle and looping the bridle over her nose. Not wavering a bit from the “lesson” aspect of all this, he steps back to let her show what she’s already learned from hanging around the stables so often, only stooping in to guide her when she gets confused. As the minutes tick by, more people show up for the lesson: three other students, and a good sized crowd of people who just like watching the pegasuses. By then, I’m seated on the grass outside the stables, soaking in the blistering sun and watching as Percy (seated atop a wiry black pegasus who Batty pointed out as Blackjack) darts around the large dusty enclosure, making final preparations for the lesson.
Skye and Jeffrey show up then, and sit on either side of me. I want to ask them where Jane and Rachel are, but they’re talking non-stop about a game they just played in the woods with some of the other campers, only switching the subject when Percy and Blackjack return and they begin discussing whether or not it should be scientifically possible for a horse to fly.
Just as Batty and Queen Lotus Flower begin a gentle trot around the enclosure, I feel a tap on my shoulder, and hear the familiar sound of Tommy’s chuckle. “She’s got a weird knack for that,” he says. I nod, grinning.
It’s been good with us. We’ve had breakfast together a few times, even played a game of basketball one afternoon. Our conversations aren’t the same as they used to be, and there’s a sense of newness that feels cold and strange every so often. But it’s good. It feels right. At least for now, this feels like where we’re supposed to be.
As Percy starts demonstrating how to take flight, I look around again. Jane and Rachel still aren’t here. They promised to come. (“For moral support!” Jane had said. “Wouldn’t miss it,” Rachel had added with a smile). I try to push it out of my head. This lesson is a big deal. Batty’s going to be flying.
She leans forward on Queen Lotus Flower’s neck.
They begin to run, moving together like a single being.
Just as they burst into the air, Batty’s euphoric smile lighting up the sky, Katie grabs my shoulders from behind. I shush her so I can lean forward and watch Batty silhouetted against the pegasus’s wide orange wings.
“Rosalind. Rosalind, guys. ” Something about the panic in Katie’s voice makes me turn around. Her usually tied back hair is loose and her clothes rumpled, giving the impression that she was dragged out of bed for this. (Some part of my brain distantly remembers her saying she was going to take a nap). Skye and Jeffrey turn around, too.
“What, what’s happening?” I reach out my hands, trying to calm her as she collapses into a squat, breathing heavily.
“Billie… found me in the cabin… had been looking for you guys… been running all over the camp… lucky I remembered about the riding lesson…”
Jeffrey leans over and puts his hands on her shoulders. She stares down at the dirt while her breathing levels.
“Katie, what are you saying? Why were you and Billie looking for us?”
She looks up, and I see that her forehead is drawn into well-worn creases of worry. “Jane and Rachel have gone into the woods.”
Something was wrong. Sabrina crouched on the wet sand, straining to see through the heavy rain. In her dream there had definitely been someone else on the island. She remembered the hunched figure, the sound of sobs leaking through the rain.
But she’d circled the shore at least twice by now, and there was nobody to be found. “Am I late or something?” she wondered aloud. Somehow, she’d gotten that dream It felt like it had been sent to her. Why did it show a person when there was no one?
Sabrina sighed and began to traipse inland, tucking a knife in her pocket. It wasn’t a big island, and she might as well find some shelter aside from her boat, which was now overturned somewhere on the beach. Circe lived here, didn’t she? There must be some sort of roof, especially if this kind of weather was standard.
Or maybe this was just a random island and there was no Aeaea and Sabrina’s dream had just been the unhinged work of her unconscious mind.
There was a small grassy hill set aside from the sand, which Sabrina crawled up with the determination of a dying warrior. Something was pushing her back. An invisible force, a last crumb of survival instinct, plain old fatigue, she wasn’t sure. But something wanted her out of here, and it pushed back harder and harder as she climbed.
She let out a cry of frustration, clawing at the ground, at the air, at whatever this goddamn thing was, and found a renewed burst of strength that pulled her to the top of the hill. Once there, the force that pushed back ebbed a little, like it was giving up. Sabrina let herself relax, and simply took in the view for a moment.
The hill she lay on top of gave way to a deep valley, sprawling and green. In one corner, there was a cluster of trees that looked healthy and comfortable, despite being on a random Greek island in the middle of the ocean. A modest garden lay next to it, somehow appearing unaffected by the rain, and a narrow river wound around the whole scene.
There was also a house.
Sabrina wasn’t sure what she might have expected from the lair of an infamous Greek enchantress, but it wasn’t this.
She hauled herself up on the hill and started down, rushing through the rain onto a wide wooden porch. There was a large stone vat of something dark and crumbly, with a heavy looking staff of sorts leaning against it. The door to the house was short, and Sabrina heard it scrape on the floor when she pushed it open.
The scene awaiting her was surprisingly cozy when she stepped inside. There was a fire in the hearth and rows upon rows of little viles arranged on a set of shelves beside it. A broom leaned against the wall. Sabrina looked around, noting the way that the rain didn’t make any sound as it thrashed against the roof and window, and the almost drug-like stupor that threatened to take over her brain, whispering that everything was fine, she was safe, nothing bad could happen to her.
Sabrina had encountered hypnosis before, and it only ever made her more jittery.
There was an open hatch in the floor with stairs that lead into darkness. She followed them down, feeling the air grow cooler with every step. Sabrina was quiet, taking tiny steps on her toes, and wincing when one of the stairs creaked. She didn’t know what was down there, and she didn’t want to find out the hard way. But there were no arrows flying up from the space below, no sounds of footsteps or slashes of swords.
Sabrina stepped onto a dirt floor and let herself exhale, shuffling along until her toe hit something hard. Only seasoned reflexes made her reach for the knife in her pocket instead of crying out in fear. She knelt down and squinted in the darkness, trying to see what she’d hit.
A leg.
She frowned, shaking it until she heard a low growl. “Stop that.” She stopped.
“Who are you?” Sabrina leaned closer. If they hadn’t killed her yet she was probably safe.
Instead of answering, they reached out a hand. Sabrina could see a gold ring on the thumb that glinted in a little sliver of light that had crept down from the room above. “Pull me up,” the figure said. “I’ve been paralyzed by the witch.”
Helping the stranger sit turned out to be no simple feat. They were tall and muscular, wearing a cape and a heavy metal chest plate. “The witch?” she questioned, propping them up against one of the cellar’s dirt walls. Her eyes were beginning to adust to the dark, and she could just make out their sharp chin sticking out as their head lolled back.
The figure made a noise. “The witch, the sorceress, the woman. Whatever you want to call her. I figure she sent you down too?” They snorted. “Good luck. I told Zeus not to sent mortals, but does he ever listen? You’re gonna die.”
Sabrina tried to piece together what she could from all this. The witch must be Circe, unless she’d wound up on an entirely different island. And if Circe was going around paralyzing people, then something must be going on. She must be hiding something. As for the person in front of her, Sabrina wasn’t sure who they were. By the way they talked about Zeus, and casually said “mortals,” she’d guess some sort of god? As if that narrowed it down. She’d have to be careful.
“Why did she paralyze you?”
Another weird gutteral noise. “She didn’t like my offer. It’s not the first time this has happened.”
She was growing impatient. Why’d he have to be so vague? “What?”
“Yeah, I don’t know why he always sends me. I don’t think he trusts me. He’d rather me stay her paralysed in the basement of a witch than come back home.”
Sabrina let out an exasperated sigh. This wasn’t working and she needed answers. A whole coast of people with mythology-shaped holes in their memories awaited her. “You’re going to need to be a little more specific. I don’t think we’re on the same page.”
The figure sounded confused. “What do you mean? Don’t you know who I am?”
She leaned forward and inspected them in the darkness. “No. No I don’t.”
They slid their eyes down to her face. “I am the god Apollo. I came here for Circe and she did this to me.”
“What? Why?”
The stairs creaked behind Sabrina and she felt a long nail drag up her back. “I just want to be left alone,” said a voice as deep and powerful as the smell of red wine. “You don’t mind, do you?” Before Sabrina could grab her knife and turn around, before she could even scream, strong arms had surrounded her shoulders and a hand was clamping a damp cloth over her nose and mouth. Shock made her breath in, sharply, and she smelled the sweetness of sleeping drugs.
A heartbeat, a brief struggle, and Sabrina Starr was gone.
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